Why I Cry On Mother's Day
Mother's Day is tomorrow, and I guess I don't really count myself among the ranks of women who happily pat themselves on the back and bask in their family's love on this holiday. Honestly, I wonder if few women really do. I don't know. I guess I was excited about my first Mother's Day, and probably my second. I was proud to walk myself into church with my head held high and my baby in my arms, proud to associate myself with the club of women who were older and wiser than me, who were mothers.
But then I came to my third and fourth Mother's Days, and up until now, my eighth Mother's Day (actually my ninth because I had a miscarriage right before Mother's Day the year before I had children, but that's a whole different part of my story, and that Mother's Day was a very painful experience)...and these years I don't feel the same as I did on those early Mother's Days. The day isn't centered around me proudly parading myself into church with my little entourage surrounding me.
Instead, I'm pretty sure that on all of these recent Mother's Days, I've cried.
I've cried because I've felt so keenly aware of all my failures as a mother. I've felt how hard this journey is, what struggle and sacrifice and pure imperfection is the essence of it. I've wished I were better, more capable, less impatient, less unsure of what to do. I wish I knew how to be a better mother to these precious girls.
And as tomorrow rolls around, as Mother's Day comes again, you know what? I don't really feel all that different. I still feel the incredible weight of this task. I feel the enormity of it. And I feel that I don't have what it takes to do it well, to give my daughters the mothering that I long to give them, the mothering they deserve.
But I do know one thing this year that's different.
I know that I'm not called to have everything I need all stored up within myself. I'm not asked to be competent for this task. I'm not suppoed to be 'mom enough' to scale this mountain called motherhood.
What I'm called to do is to see the task, see the overwhelming needs in front of me, to also see the lack inside of me, and to cry out for a Savior.
It's the great calling, annointing, and role of a woman, of a mother, to cry out for help outside of themselves. The Bible calls it 'hoping in God.' And it's what I must do, what we must do, when we realize the stark reality of the deep lack we carry inside of us to mother our children well. There is a Fountain of Living Water, who will fill us up with all we need, over and over, but it's our job to see our lack of being the fountain ourselves, and to turn to Him.
I used to think the answer was inside me. To be better, do better, make myself become something I'm not. But what I've found is that instead of running from my lack, I need to embrace it. It's a beautiful thing to embrace my need, embrace my lack, because I have a Fountain, I have a Savior, I have a Helper, who is there with all that I need, waiting to fill me up as a mother, with Himself. And that's where the real change, and the real life, the real power as a mother is found. From outside of myself.
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Hebrews 13:20
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:13-14