Profitable… and potentially painful
Mother’s Day reminds me of Valentine’s Day. On both these high-profile secular holidays, big corporations that peddle cards, candy, and flowers make a ton of money. Words of affection that should be voiced every day (rather than guilted into prominence once a year) get spoken or written. And lots of people endure 24 hours of feeling left out, less than, and lonely.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for honoring mothers, just like I’m all for celebrating love! But I am increasingly cynical about the way our culture does both, and I’m increasingly passionate about urging more life-giving alternatives.
I remember a long-ago Mother’s Day, before I was a mother myself, attending a church service in which several infant baptisms were taking place. The church was fragrant with flowers, the babies were adorable, sunlight streamed through stained glass windows as the priest paid tribute to motherhood as the most noble of callings… and the woman behind me sobbed helplessly through the whole thing, the agony of her recent stillbirth made unbearable by the proceedings.
In the years since, numerous women have confided in me that Mother’s Day is a yearly crucible – for all kinds of reasons. They’ve never had children and it’s too late now. Or, their fertility struggles are ongoing and demoralizing. Their own mother is dead. Or, they are estranged from their mother – or their children.
On a day when it seems as if every other woman in the world is surrounded by adoration and affirmation, such circumstances can make a woman doubt her value and question the point of her life.
God’s (GOOD) idea
Motherhood was God’s idea. But how much of God’s idea of motherhood are we celebrating when we single out being a biological parent as the litmus test for women’s worthiness? Scripture spells out the inadequacy of that understanding. Isaiah writes,
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
(Isaiah 49:15, emphasis added)
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Isaiah’s point resonates with Solomon’s wisdom about “real” motherhood. When there is a dispute between two women about whose infant son has survived the night, Solomon settles the matter by offering to divide the child between them. The woman who is willing to renounce her claim in order to save the child – she is the “real” mother, Solomon proclaims. (1 Kings 3:16 – 28)
Solomon’s logic runs throughout scripture: motherhood, at its very best, echoes God’s love in terms of devotion and long-suffering faithfulness.
Further, biological parenthood is not a guaranty of that echo (careful ambiguity remains in the Solomon story as to whether the “real” mother has actually given birth to the baby). And biological parenthood certainly does not have a monopoly on the potential for imitating God’s love!
In scripture, the foster mother of Moses and the adoptive father of Jesus are just two stand-out examples of a divine definition of parenthood that has little to do with genetics and much to do with choosing to love as God loves.
Jesus taught this distinction directly in the gospels. Here is Matthew’s version (chapter 12, verses 46 – 50):
46 While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” 48 But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Not that Jesus dishonored or rejected His mother – far from it. Among His last words on the cross were these:
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
(John 19:26 – 27)
What, exactly, is happening here? As Jesus is dying, He ensures that His mother will be provided for and protected in His absence. And Jesus’s words spell out that the constituents of the provision and protection are the substance of the mother / son relationship. Heretofore, Jesus has cared for Mary as her son. From this point, John will care for Mary as her son. To care for the mother is to BE the son… and vice versa.
Two of the most amazing mothers I’ve ever known never gave birth. Debra C. fostered dozens of children over decades, adopting one daughter and changing so many lives with her patient affection. Susan S. became a Christian as a single, almost-50-year-old professor of linguistics, then proceeded to adopt and raise 2 sibling groups of three from Ethiopia. The Christ-likeness of the sacrificial love in these women’s lives still takes my breath away.
None of this is meant to denigrate the beautiful bond that can exist from conception to death between a mother and child. Rather, it is to acknowledge that that bond – at its most beautiful – only imitates the love of God. And it is also to insist that that bond – at its most beautiful – can exist between mothers and children whom God brings together in ways besides pregnancy.
So, if you are a mother whose children rise up and call you “blessed” this Mother’s Day, congratulations! May the joy of the day and the sweetness of the sentiments combine to fill you up with holy delight!
But if you are a woman and that is not your experience this year, please be comforted: God’s love for you is from everlasting to everlasting, and God sees you and cherishes you, right this very moment.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:14 – 19, emphasis added)
