on mothers day.

Here’s the deal about today. Before I was a mother, it was easy to have this day on the calendar. A no brainer. I have a great mom. I loved to make her a card from scratch with all her scrapbook supplies. It was a happy mothers day, every year.

I’m one of the lucky ones, I know.

Then I became a mom. And mothers day was maybe about not having to change all the diapers and my choice of dinner. Which was all great, and wonderful. But something happened too. i found myself drowning in self doubt and letting “failure” become the blanket for the day.

whatever. I know I was doing better than I thought I was. I know I was just figuring out life and getting into that mom groove. But what I’m trying to say is, it was about me. My fear of failure. My self doubt. My tiny baby and my divine role as mother.

As I’ve gotten a little older, and had a few more kids, the day has become something else.

I know amazing women who painfully struggle in so many aspects of motherhood. Strong, capable, incredible women who face these…. Seemingly impossibly unfair circumstances, every day. They wake up with them. And toss in their sleep with them. Women who struggle with kids who have special needs. With infertility. With depression. With adoption processes. With the huge void of loss. Struggles and trials and uphill mountain trails that are lonely and carried day in and day out. Women who have the three beautiful children and still struggle to feel capable of raising them and giving them all they need. Women missing their own moms, grandmothers, or sisters.

Mothers day today means something entirely different than it has the last 28 years of my life. Today it’s about us. together. linking arms in wherever we are standing. Your circumstances aren’t mine, and mine not yours. but that is okay. Because today, on Mothers Day, may we stand united in empathy and love and support and faith. That even if we don’t understand our own desert place, or the girl we passed in the church hallway’s paradise place, we need each other. We need each other to carry the umbrella of shelter. To remind us that we’re doing better than we think we are. To offer comic relief about the woes of potty training. To sit in quiet support in the depths of despair.

My mom told me after I had my first daughter at 19 “motherhood is pure joy, sprinkled with heartache.” And I know she’s right. Whether you’ve tasted of that pure joy, or not, that joy will come. And whether you’ve tasted the joy or not, you’ve definitely held the heartache.

i pray for less judging and less hiding out and more connection and vulnerability. More hugs and big umbrellas to shelter in the storm. More laughing in the trenches and more grace. More leaning on the Lord, and less on ourselves.

I pray for peace, for each of us, especially today. I am more aware than ever of the range of, everything, this day holds for every woman. Old, young, widowed, newly married. friend. Grandmother, sister, daughter. you and me. them.

As we go about our day today, hug each other. Reach out. Even if you don’t know what to say, or how to say it. Extend the umbrella of connection and love. Be hugged. Be loved. Let your walls down and let them carry this day with you for a second.

From me to you, you are loved. And this day is known, if by no one else, by our Savior Jesus Christ.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5

download this print for free here as my gift to you for mothers day. :)