a look ahead at Mother's Day

A week from today will be Mother's day.  This week there will be talk about buying flowers and gifts for the moms, of planning Sunday brunch or dinner as a treat to us mamas.....

I still get to celebrate my mom, my step mom and my mom in law.  I have all 3.  I am beyond grateful for each of them.....so today, with Mother's day a week a way, I am praising God for them, praying protection and health and goodness for each one.

My children here, that call me mom......they know.  They are grateful too.  Grateful in a way that says they can ask me to help them do their laundry, or review for a quiz, or snuggle on the couch in the morning and I will say yes.  They are grateful in that they know children who have lost their mom, like the kids next door, and they understand it could just have easily been this mom who died 2 years ago, leaving a dad to raise his children.

I am keenly aware of mamas who placed their children for adoption, and especially for our 2 birth moms......and for moms who abandoned their children because they were not able to be a mom.....and my heart aches in a very full and deep place for these moms.  I know you, mama.  I know what you have suffered and sacrificed.  I know and so does Jesus.

Lets all celebrate moms  this week, in big and small ways.  Lets offer to bring a meal for a foster mom we know, lets give a prayer of thanks for adoptive moms and first time moms and single moms and moms with gobs of kids and everything in between because lets face it.....this work of mothering is so important.  It is also so hard.

We moms are responsible for the love and nurture and health and formation of the next generation of teachers,  moms, dads, marketplace workers, preachers, lawyers, judges......bank tellers and garbage collectors.  You name it and our children will walk into these roles.   We moms need to make sure that our children are equipped with everything they need to fulfill the assignment that God Almighty gave them at birth.  We start early in the day and we stay the course well into the night being mom.  We get hugs and kisses and thank yous.  We get flowers, we get gifts, we get a yes and amen from Heaven......and for all that we get we are giving twice as much because that is what it means to be mom.

Take heart, sweet mamas everywhere.  Take heart and grab hold of the hearts you have been entrusted to raise up.  Hold them, cherish them, be grateful for them because they are a gift.  In the easy seasons we celebrate and in the hard seasons we cling to each other so that arm in arm, with hugs and with help we can continue this work of mothering....... Celebrate you, celebrate who and what you are this week.....if there is no one to buy you flowers, buy them yourself.  Remember all the good you are doing if there is no one to tell you.....take pictures of your children and look at them often.  Praise Jesus for this very important work you are doing, and ask for His help and blessing to keep doing it.....and lets all tell one another....Happy Mother's Day.....over and over and over.