Gathering the Gleanings: Reflections on Life in the Ministry

Prior to the past 18 years I’ve simply wanted to hide under the covers and make a blanket hideaway that wasn’t really allowed when I was growing up. However this was a difficult thing to do because being a pastor, I sort of had people expecting me to lead worship and preach. Since the arrival of my own children in my life it’s been so complex, I hardly know what to think or do. I do want to be present for my children and allow them to celebrate me, if that’s what they chose to do.

However, I am so conflicted because while I honor and love my children and grandchildren and there is no sweeter sound to my ears then to hear them say Mom (even if it’s every second). I have many other thoughts and people on my mind and in my heart and a flood of feelings well up inside.

I also am very much aware that Mother’s Day is extremely hard for so many. They often suffer in silence, as did I for so many years. They don’t make their ways to a pew for worship they stay in bed or a sanctuary of a different kind. I want to name and give voice to some of that. In a weird way giving voice to my own pain and mixed emotions.

There is a fact I’m more certain of than most any other thing – every human being has a birth mother. They have a person who carried them in their womb for however many weeks or months. God created each of us fearfully and wonderfully and indeed knit us together. There is almost always a person listed on our birth certificates under the words “mother” and sometimes the father spot is left blank, they become nameless.

However, some of our Birth Mothers were incapable of accepting this great responsibility. They didn’t want to or couldn’t (for whatever and that’s their story). Thus leaving so many children without a mom.

Have a mom, in my opinion is different, than having a mother. English language defines them the same way- my heart does not. A mom loves with compassion and is present in good and bad times. A mom cheers their children on in their accomplishments and cradles them and wipes their tears when they stumble, fall or are torn apart. A mom is not perfect, yet a mom loves at all times. for those of us who didn’t have a mom present in these ways grieve deeply on what our society calls Mother’s Day (and most other days also). It’s that our pain is silenced more because others are shouting “I love you mom” at the tops of their lungs. In today’s world take a look at social media and you can’t miss it.

From my own story and from listening to other’s story, on Mother’s Day I also hold in my heart others having a hard time…

Those who never experienced a mom’s love and safety. Those who hurt because they wanted to have children and couldn’t. Those whose moms have died. Those brave mom’s who have lost a child to disease, accident, or even suicide. What about those children who struggle because their mom did die by suicide, they often live wondering if they were not good enough or perfect enough. What about women who are incarcerated and likewise those children who have mom’s who have bars separating them from giving or getting a hug.

My hospice work has made it even more real that the children whose moms struggle with a memory based disease and can’t recognize them anymore. My work as a chaplain in a children’s hospital leave me wondering about the moms whose children I baptized that might not take another breath or even who had already taken their last breath. I feel the physical weight of the deceased children passed to me to hold and sit with as a grieving mother leaves the room and closes the door. I wonder what Mother’s Day does to her emotional heart.

As an adoptive mom, I’m more keenly grateful for my children’s birth Mothers and thank God for their selfless act of giving up their child because they knew they couldn’t care for them – I wonder if they grieve and wonder about their child especially on this day. I struggle along with children who wonder why their Birth mothers had to give them up or abandon them – even if they now have a mom who loves them today and every day.

I can’t help grieve for moms who did everything they could to have a child and couldn’t, who had miscarriage after miscarriage- that hurts I know for sure. What about those mom’s, who would have been darn good mom’s, who had to abort their child or were forced to, how do they grieve and or do they carry guilt over it and it’s extra silent because it’s a secret?

Who sits with the child whose mom hurt them emotionally, physically or sexually? Not many think about that, because it’s easy to turn our heads. That’s even too hard for most people to grasp. Or the flip side what about the mom’s whose children who have hit or hurt them in some way. What about all the estrangements between mothers and their children – how do both carry that pain?

I’ve undoubtedly left some pain that Mother’s Day brings up in ways that paralyze some – it’s not intentional, it’s not to further shame them, revictimize them or silence their pain. If your one of them, I can hear your story also and want too.

I want to conclude with a couple of final thoughts and emphasize a few more. There are plenty of mom’s definitely who should be honored in additional and special ways on Mother’s Day. I don’t want to take away that wonderful blessing for either the mom or the child. I know so many of you love your mom enough to even share her with many. Thank you!

I’ve being longing for decades for a mom of sorts. I’ve found her when I wasn’t looking and in an unexpected way and place, regardless of they way, I thank God every single day for her. May you one day have your heart cared for like that. May you hear the sweet sound of “take care of my girl or my boy”.

For those who this day emphasizes your pain in deep deep ways I pray someone is more aware of your struggle as Sunday approaches, that you can find a way to a pew and you will be given space to feel your feelings and someone will be able to say I honor you and your story, even if you can’t use words to tell it.

I know that the God whom I love, worship and serve loves you as a mother would, a father would, a sibling would and a friend would. I pray one day you may experience that and claim that. It won’t take away the pain or any other feeling however perhaps it will give you a small amount of peace that someone does claim you as their child!

Almost everyone knows I will proclaim from the mountain tops and even take out a bill board that says “You are a child of God!”

Whatever, Mother’s Day brings up for you, I really, really do honor your story.