Today, we celebrate Mother’s Day—sorry fathers (myself included!), you will have to wait another five weeks for your turn because it’s “ladies first”! This day is dedicated to honour motherhood, to acknowledge and show our appreciation for their self-giving love and their critical role in the upliftment of society. As Christians, it is right for us to be grateful for and celebrate God’s gift of mothers, imperfect as they are, which he gives to all alike. Indeed, the creation account informs us, “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20). In this way, all who ever lived come through mothers—life givers from the ultimate Life Giver (1 Cor 11:12).
As Christians, when we honour mothers, we give thanks and show our appreciation for their positive presence in our lives. And as the mother of my children would say, “I’m a mother every day,” we know that our efforts to do so must not be limited to this day. Even if death has separated us from our mothers, we can continue to be thankful for their lives and their impact on ours, and consider how we may continue to honour them in the way we live.
But we live in a broken world, and must know that not everyone has positive interactions with their parents. For those among us who have suffered adverse childhood experiences due to our mothers’ (and fathers’) way of parenting, and find it extremely difficult to forgive them—much less celebrate them—I pray that we may find healing in the Son who laid down his life for us and gave us abundant life. May we find in him even the strength to forgive. For through Christ, we are adopted by God into the divine family despite abandonment or abuse (Ps. 27:10). His love for us can fill what our earthly parents—both father and mother—may have failed to give.
Through Jesus’ model of prayer, we may be used to the idea of God as our Father. But the Bible portrays many maternal images of God too. Deuteronomy 32:18, Matthew 23:37, Psalm 131:2, Isaiah 49:15, and many other verses likens God’s love for us as motherly love—fiercely protective, profoundly comforting, and passionately nurturing. No matter whether we have the parents we would like to have; no matter if we are the parents we would like to be; no matter if we can fulfil our dreams of being parents at all, nothing can ever separate us from the love God has for us.