If I could have one wish each May, it would be to gather every woman I know for a beautiful Mother’s day luncheon. We would visit and eat and laugh and be nourished by good food and better conversation.
And if I could have a few minutes to speak, I would say this:
Each of us has a story. It’s a powerful story, because it’s the only story just like it in all the world – in all the history of the world, to be exact. There has never been, and there never will be, another life story exactly like yours.
Collectively our stories explain the perpetuation of the human race. It is the story of motherhood, from the sweet smell of a newborn to the runny-nosed toddler who marks your pants each day like a growth chart with dirty hands and face. It continues through the delightful years of childhood and into the uncharted realm of teenagers. It is the story of daughters looking to their mothers as they step into adulthood, marriage, and motherhood themselves.
It is the story of women who would do anything to be a mother, yet are denied their dearest dream. The story of women who, for many reasons, choose not to have children. The story of women who nurse, teach and care for the children of others. Women who, because of the choices of one party or another, don’t know where their children are, or perhaps even who their children are. Women who feel like they have no idea what they’re doing. Women parenting alone. Women still caring for the basic needs of children who were born decades ago. Women who buried their child and have wondered ever since, “who am I now?” Women who grieve for mothers who are no longer here.
The scenarios are as many as we are. All of them matter. Each one is part of this collective story of women doing hard things. Some of us love Mother’s Day; some of us hide from it. For some, it is salt in a very deep wound. And for many of us, it’s a reminder that we don’t measure up (to some false standard of perfect mothering).
Today I say this:
How you tell your story matters. How you receive another’s story matters. What you do with these stories, matters.
It matters how we treat people, and how we treat ourselves. It matters that we forgive. It matters that we repent. It matters that we learn. It matters that we find people to serve. That we seek truth. That we understand who we are as daughters of God. It matters that we reflect light. That we show up, do good, and overcome.
I have a piece of art that hangs on the wall above my bathroom scale. That scale and I are not friends; it represents failure to me in a big way. But I get on the scale anyway because I’m trying to show up, and as I do it I lift my eyes to the message on my wall. It says, “You are enough.”
Not perfect. Enough. And it’s true. You are enough for Jesus Christ to have offered himself in your place. Because of the great and merciful plan of happiness, what He did is enough.
Y ou are good enough!
Here is my Mother’s day challenge (I’m preaching to my own heart): Let’s shake off the things that make us shrink instead of stand boldly. Let’s dismiss Mother’s day as merely a headcount of our children and a recitation of their accomplishments, or as a symbol of what we’re not, and let’s make it about light . Let’s stand up and stand together and let’s be a light, a light that shines in darkness, a light that reflects the Light of the World, the Light which can never be darkened.
We can do this. After all, it’s our day, isn’t it?
Right now I wish I could hug you and say, “Thank you for the light you shine into this world. WE NEED IT. What will you do to make it brighter?”
All my love, Jennifer
