Dear Fellow Mother,
I want to wish you a very blessed and happy Mother’s Day! I know that Mother’s Day can be a joyous day for many women but it can also be a hard day for many of those very same women. So, before I dive in, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge all women who feel a sting on pain today on Mother’s Day — those who have lost a mother (or mother figure), those who have a strained relationship with their own mothers, those who are suffering from infertility, those who have lost a child, and many more — please know that you are seen and you feelings are valid.
On the other hand, please know that spiritual motherhood is real and that by virtue of your womanhood, your loving and life-giving nature, you are a mother. I have learned to embrace this beautiful call to spiritual motherhood in my own life and have found it such a balm in times of trial. I invite each of you whether you are a biological mother, adoptive mother, foster mother, godmother, or spiritual mother to embrace this role with gladness and serve in your own mission field.
As I remember all you do every day on this special day, I wanted to share something that has been ruminating in my mind lately. Over the season of Lent, I had the special blessing of reading a biography of St. Therese of Lisieux and since I have quite fallen in love with her very simple “Little Way”. This “Little Way”, explained most basically, is St. Therese’s theology and spirituality that we do not have to do great things for Jesus but if all our little actions are done with love, they are made great by virtue of that simple love. In her autobiography, The Story of a Soul* she explains that each of us – no matter how little and insignificant we feel – have a something beautiful to offer to Jesus. She says:
“Every flower has its own created beauty, the splendor of the rose, the lily’s whiteness does not deprive the violet of its scent nor lessen the daisy’s charm. If every flower wanted to be a rose, nature would lose her spring adornments and the fields would not be beautiful with their varied flowers…so it is in the world of souls the living garden of God.”
I really wanted to share this imagery with you on this Mother’s Day because I feel that motherhood is one of those things that often feels forgotten and insignificant in our world. However, it is such an important role and one that has such beauty. True, it may not have the highest salary or the best job perks but there is beauty in the love that is poured out each day just as there is beauty in the simple scent of the violet and the charm of the daisy.
I hope that YOU know that what you are doing is SO important and that the beauty of your vocation is seen and loved by God precisely because of its littleness and simplicity.
I pray you have a wonderful Mother’s Day. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
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