Today, we pause to honor Mother’s Day, a day originally created to celebrate the women who shaped us, nurtured us, and stood beside us in love and strength. While it remains a beautiful tradition, I believe it helps to acknowledge this truth: Mother’s Day has become complicated for many of us.

We give thanks for the women (biological, adoptive, spiritual) who have poured into our lives. The grandmas, the mentors, the friends, the aunts, the teachers, and the neighbors who mothered us in ways both ordinary and extraordinary. Their presence has helped shape the people we are today, and for them, we are deeply grateful.

Yet we also have to recognize those for whom this day brings pain.

Some are grieving the loss of a beloved mother, her absence felt in the quiet moments and in the memories that rise like waves.

Some bear the wounds of mothers who were unable or unwilling to love and nurture as they should have or maybe could have.

Some carry the ache of dreams unfulfilled, their longing to be a mother met only with silence or loss.

And others, like me, walk the road of motherhood with hearts broken by the death of a child. We know the fierce joy of mothering and the unspeakable sorrow of loving someone who is no longer here.

Today, we should hold space for all of it, for the joy and the grief, for the celebration and the silence, for the flowers and the tears.

Mother’s Day wasn’t created to be a performance of perfection. It was born to be a remembrance of love. Let us remember, then, all the love: the love we’ve received, the love we give, the love we’ve lost, and the love we hope for.

Scripture reminds us in Isaiah 66:13, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” Whether this day brings peace or pain, may you be wrapped in the comfort of God, a God who sees, who knows, and who holds every story tenderly.

May we honor the mothers, the mothering ones, and those who long to be. May we extend grace to ourselves and to each other. And may love, imperfect, enduring love, be our song today. 💐🥰