Tag Archives: relationships

We’ve been sharing great Mother’s Day posts on our Facebook Page, and I decided they warranted a listing here on the blog, as we reflect on our mothers and all care-givers who nurture and love on others.

A poem about motherhood and our feeble attempts to return the favor for our mothers’ innumerable sacrifices.  This will make you laugh and cry:

Because mothers are human beings too…and need lots of grace!:  “This Mother’s Day, Make a List of Reasons You Resent Your Mother – Oh, and then throw it away.” by Ashley Moore for Today’s Christian Woman.

Glennon Melton at Momastery shared this one from TheRoot.com

Shauna Niequist, daughter of Bill and Lynne Hybels, on “What My Mother Taught Me” – Make space for two callings in one home, one marriage. Don’t let logistics get in the way of calling. It’s not easy, it’s complicated – but everyone benefits when women tap into the passions and gifts that God has given them.

Ann Voskamp’s beautiful piece, “Why Motherhood is Really Just for the Birds.”  Here’s an excerpt:

That’s just the pretty ugly of us — we’re not the Hallmark mother, just the Velveteen Mothers. The Velveteen Mothers who know when there’s a volleys of words and weary silences afterward and everything looks impossibly wrecked —

The angular, hard edges of perfection are being sanded down by all our scrapes and falls, till we’re round and soft and can get close enough to each other to just hold each other.

Only when you’re broken are you tender enough to wrap yourself around anyone.

Only the broken people can really embrace.

That’s us — could we just really hold onto each other?

Find each other and hold onto each other and offer the hug of the broken who know the relief that homemaking is about making a home, not perfection, that motherhood is a hallowed space because children aren’t commonplace, that anyone who fosters dreams and labor prayers is a mother to the child in us all.

 

This really important bit of advice: “How Not to be Disappointed this Mother’s Day,” from Lisa Jo Baker.  How many of us have unrealistic expectations for this holiday?  Here’s an outstanding excerpt:

We expect and the expecting is high and impossible until it blossoms into full blown entitlement. And entitlement? Entitlement is a very slippery thing. Entitlement believes that we know best, deserve the best, and resents the rest who don’t deliver. Entitlement takes the sacrifice of motherhood and spins it in dizzying, disorienting circles. Motherhood bends. Entitlement demands. Motherhood serves. Entitlement stomps its foot. Motherhood delights. Entitlement keeps lists. Motherhood laughs. Entitlement whines. Motherhood celebrates. Entitlement sulks. Motherhood forgets itself in favor of remembering her dimple, his fastest mile, their mouths all ringed around with chocolate. Entitlement tastes bitterness in every bite of a day that doesn’t go as planned. And the grand irony of a day devoted to remembering mothers is that it can make me forget how content I am in this skin. Because I am not the sum total of breakfast in bed or empty dishwashers. I am not defined by how tidy the playroom is or who remembered to make me a thoughtful card.

Shane Claiborne shared this prayer from Common Prayer:

A Litany to Honor Women

We walk in the company of the women who have gone before, Mothers of the faith both named and unnamed,
Testifying with ferocity and faith to the Spirit of Wisdom and Healing.
They are the judges, the prophets, the martyrs, the warriors, poets, lovers and Saints
Who are near to us in the shadow of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams.*

We walk in the company of Deborah,
who judged the Israelites with authority and strength.

We walk in the company of Esther,
who used her position as Queen to ensure the welfare of her people.

We walk in the company of you whose names have been lost and silenced,
who kept and cradled the wisdom of the ages.

We walk in the company of the woman with the flow of blood,
who audaciously sought her healing and release.

We walk in the company of Mary Magdalene,
who wept at the empty tomb until the risen Christ appeared.

We walk in the company of Phoebe,
who led an early church in the empire of Rome.

We walk in the company of Perpetua of Carthage,
whose witness in the third century led to her martyrdom.

We walk in the company of Saint Christina the Astonishing,
who resisted death with persistence and wonder.

We walk in the company of Julian of Norwich,
who wed imagination and theology proclaiming “all shall be well.”

We walk in the company of Sojourner Truth,
who stood against oppression, righteously declaring “ain’t I a woman!” in 1852.

We walk in the company of the Argentine Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
who turned their grief to strength, standing together to remember “the disappeared” children of war
with a holy indignation.

We walk in the company of Alice Walker,
who named the lavender hue of womanish strength.

We walk in the company of you Mothers of the faith,
who teach us to resist evil with boldness, to lead with wisdom, and to heal.

Amen.
The Liturgists shared a fascinating prayer and meditation on “God Our Mother”.  So true that we cannot fully understand God and our language often only impedes us further in that.
And finally, I’ll leave you with this beautiful post from Glennon Melton at Momastery, “Sistering On.”  I love the metaphor and I found myself crying at the beauty of this simple post.  Oh, how I need the support of my sisters!  We all need to love and support one another.

http://www.mothersday2014.co