Mother’s Day is once again upon us, and with it comes all sorts of emotions for all kinds of people. Some are celebrating their wonderful moms, while others are mourning the loss of their mother, and still others may be cringing at the memory of a mother who wasn’t there for them. Some women are relishing their own role as a mother, while others are just trying to make it through a day that reminds them only of the void that comes with never having been able to have children of their own, or worse, having lost one to miscarriages or other tragedies. My point is this day can be beautiful and wonderful, or it could bring heartache and pain, and no matter where you or I fall on that spectrum, we all have to walk through this day somehow.
Family is such an important part of our society. Our families shape us and often mold us into the adults we become. If we are blessed to have been raised in a family where love and faith were a continual thread, it is easy to forget that there are those who have not shared our same experiences. While we might have great memories upon which to reflect, there are others who are doing everything they can to not remember their own. Such is the complicated nature of family relationships, and such is the complicated nature for so many women when it comes to motherhood.
Most of you know that my husband, and I were not able to have children of our own. We looked into all the other possibilities, but none of them worked out for us. Over time, the grief of our situation shifted and morphed, as it does with any other type of grief. Not only that, but this year is the first Mother’s Day my husband and I have shared where one of our mother’s is no longer with us. My mother-in-law was an amazing woman who never met a stranger or gave up on anyone. She loved unconditionally and losing her has changed the palette of feelings that we share individually and as a family at this time of year.
This year, in spite of all of life’s challenges and the complications that can come with this day for so many women (and men), there is something different on my heart and mind. This year, I am thanking God not only for my own godly mother who raised me in deep love and faith, or the children in my life that I’ve had the opportunity to influence in one way or another, but I am also thanking God for the three children my husband and I sponsor through Compassion International. It’s been a number of years now, and although it took a while to become comfortable with our communications back and forth, we have settled into beautiful relationships with three children who live across the world from us. We have watched them grow, and have been blessed to be able to support, encourage and be connected to these kids and their families, and I am unspeakably grateful as I reflect on it today.
Mother’s Day is a day that we set aside to honor first our own mothers, and then all mothers. As Prince Harry recently said after the birth of his first child, “How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension!” What women go through to bring new human beings into this world really IS beyond comprehension to those of us who have not experienced it, male or female! That being said, it takes far more to make a true “mother” than just giving birth. It involves a deep and lasting love, a sacrificial love that seeks the well-being of her children first, even when it demands more than she thinks she can give. It is about understanding the responsibility you have to raise and nurture the human beings God has entrusted to your care. It is about being there. It’s putting your phone down and listening to them. It involves so much more, but you get my point.
When you consider what it truly means to “mother” another human being, you are able to step back and see a broader group of women than you might have before. All the characteristics, traits and actions that make a woman a true mother, are the same ones that make us all mothers to the world around us. I’m not discounting mothers in any way, in fact, I am doing the exact opposite. I am elevating the aspects of mothers that we all celebrate on this day each year. We celebrate the love and care. We celebrate the sacrifices. We celebrate these amazing women who took their jobs seriously and refused to give up even when their children may have disappointed them or caused them pain. These are the things we celebrate, and as people of faith, THIS is how we are supposed to love the world!
I mentioned earlier about the children my husband and I have sponsored for a number of years. Although I did not give birth to them, nor are we raising them, I love them with all my heart and feel a great responsibility toward them. My heart desires the very best for them. I cheer their accomplishments and share in their difficulties and sorrows. I worry when I hear of events going on in their countries, cities or villages. They are embedded into my heart, and I am so grateful to have yet another area to channel that mothering gene God put in my heart. I have found Compassion International to be an incredible organization with which to partner, and I could not be more blessed to have three beautiful children to love and care for as a result of their efforts.
So on this Mother’s Day, by all means, honor your mother and the other women in your lives that are worthy of that honor. Thank God for all the women who mothered you throughout the course of your life. Honor them by doing the same for others around you. Don’t reserve your nurturing just for your children, but also for those children without mothers, and for adults who are wounded and hurting. Over and over again, Jesus tells us to love one another. He tells us that everyone is our neighbor (Luke 10:25-37). He tells us to go the extra mile when we don’t have to do so (Matt 5:41). He tells us to love our enemies (Matt 4:43-48). Jesus made it perfectly clear that we are commanded to love! He told us,“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”(John 13:34-35)
Reach out to this world full of struggling people. Nurture them, love them, and never be afraid of getting your hands dirty. After all, isn’t that what mothering is all about?
Happy Mother’s Day and blessings to you all!
It all started when someone, who knows what I’ve been going through in recent months, unexpectedly came to me and said she had been reading a devotional and a verse jumped out at her that she felt needed to be shared with me. The verse was John 16:33 where Jesus said, “I’ve told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” As a result, this friend made me a pendant on which she stamped “John 16:33.” Because I was so touched by the gesture, I read that verse over and over. It is a familiar verse, but all my life, I’ve focused on the last part of it, the part where Jesus says we will have trouble but that He has overcome it. THIS time, I couldn’t get past the first comment, “I’ve told you these things so that in me you may have peace.” I just kept thinking about the fact that Jesus thought it was so important to remind His followers of why He had continually shared all He did with them. It’s like He was saying to ME, “Look, there’s a reason I’ve told you all I have about life, it’s troubles and how to navigate it.” That thought pushed the chain reaction into full swing, because it prompted me to pick up my Bible so I could remember the things He had “told me” in His word. This time though, instead of turning to the many familiar passages of encouragement and promises, I returned to something I hadn’t finished reading almost three months ago – Genesis chapter 4, the story of Cain and Abel.
So what was this epiphany I had when I read the verses telling the story of Cain and Abel? Well, I used to think of Cain as just a terrible person, an evil man who got jealous of his brother and killed him in cold blood. Not only that, but then he had the audacity to make a smart-a** comment to God Himself (Gen 4:9)! I’m not excusing anything Cain did, but I want to share a different perspective. Here were two brothers, one was a shepherd and the other was a farmer. When it came time to give an offering to God, it was supposed to be a sacrificial lamb. So, Abel provided an offering according to what God had requested, but Cain decided he would give something different. Cain decided it would be better if he sacrificed the best that HE had to God. It’s most likely that his intent was honorable, and that he thought surely it would touch God more if he sacrificed the best of his crops instead of asking his brother for a lamb to sacrifice, while giving up nothing himself. It wasn’t that he was being a disobedient jerk, but rather that he felt like God would be more pleased if he gave Him the absolute best of all he had. He was trying to honor God his way instead of simply doing what God asked. Unfortunately, he was wrong, and when God accepted Abel’s offering, but had no regard for Cain’s, it made him angry, depressed and dejected. Wouldn’t YOU be?
Ok, so back to Cain… In my memory of this story, I somehow forgot that God actually talked to him twice, the first was BEFORE he killed his brother. Gen 4:6-7: “Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” God loved Cain and knew he was upset, so He took a moment to remind him of something really important: We have an enemy and it isn’t our families, friends, coworkers, church members or anyone else; it is something bigger. Ephesians 6:12 tells us that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the power of darkness. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us to be alert and sober-minded because our enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Cain’s emotions got the best of him and God knew it, so He basically said, “Look, if you simply do what I ask instead of what you think I want, you’ll have joy. But if you lose focus and start trying to do things your way, sin is crouching down waiting to pounce on you. It wants to take you down! It wants 
As I sat in my chair the next morning, blown away by what God had just revealed to me, I said out loud, “Oh my God, I am CAIN!” I realized my frustration that God’s plan was not what I thought it should be caused me to allow the enemy to leap from his crouching and pounce all over me. And then I heard God speak to my heart the same thing he told Cain that day so long ago: “I have a plan, and if you will just trust me and follow it, everything will work out. But if you let this disappointment you feel, as a result of me not doing things your way, just keep eating at you, it’s going to destroy you. You’ve got to let it go and trust me.” Talk about being humbled by something…God’s same words to Cain in his crisis of faith thousands of years ago became the same words He said to me in mine. And just like Cain, I had a choice to make in how I moved forward, but instead of holding onto my anger as he did, I chose to unclench my hands and let it go.
Silent Saturday for the followers of Christ was a terrible day. The previous day, their Savior and friend had been brutally beaten to the point of being unrecognizable and had died a horrible death on the cross. The people who had believed in Him were crushed, scared, and worried about what the future would hold. They heard Him promise that He would rise again on the third day, but they doubted it. If they believed His promise with all their hearts, they would have been waiting expectantly at the tomb on Sunday to see it happen. Instead, they were afraid. It was extremely silent for them. Fear hovered over them while darkness hovered in the tomb. Waiting is always the hardest part.
All of us have experienced our own personal versions of a silent Saturday. We face times in which we have lived from a place of faith in God and His promises. We hold tight to our relationship with Jesus, believing what He has said, even when we sometimes don’t fully understand it. We follow; we believe; we trust. We marvel when we see God’s hand working in our lives or the lives of those around us, but then we find ourselves in a silent Saturday. We pray for God’s guidance and help, but it seems He is silent. As a result, we wonder if He is gone and start to question what will happen to us in His absence. We feel scared and helpless; and if we are honest, we sometimes feel betrayed, as if everything we have done has been for nothing. The questions start to swirl within us, “Where is God? Why won’t He answer me? Why won’t He help me?!” The longer the silence, the more scared or disillusioned we become. Depression sets in. We hunker down and start trying to figure out what we should do to protect ourselves, because it seems God has disappeared.
The disciples were already confused and fearful when Jesus was arrested. They watched Him willingly lay down His life even though they knew He had the power to strike back at those who were harming Him. Surely they felt like their entire world was falling apart and the future was too dark to see. Jesus was dead and in the tomb; Darkness set in and the silence became deafening. What I always found interesting was that Jesus had told them multiple times what He was doing and why He was doing it, but they just kept missing it. (Matthew 16:21 and 20:17-19) The problem wasn’t that they hadn’t been told, but rather that they never fully understood – or didn’t want to understand. Jesus even told the disciples “I am telling you now before it happens so that when it does happen, you will believe that I am who I am.” (John 13:19) How many times has the same thing happened to me because I was blinded by my own ideas of what should happen based on an incorrect interpretation of what God has said to me through His word? Just like the disciples, sometimes I can’t get out of my own way to see His.
I am so grateful the darkness of the original Silent Saturday didn’t last, and that Jesus walked out of the grave – ALIVE – on Sunday morning! But this year, I am also grateful to remember that the silent Saturdays of our lives don’t last either. I’m not saying these seasons of life are easy, by any stretch, and we are all in different places of faith at different times. But just as the disciples could have benefited from reminding each other of the truth and holding onto each other in moments when the fear or sadness was too much to bear, we can lean on our brothers and sisters in Christ to do the same for us (and us for them) as we trudge through the difficult times in life.
A few years ago, I had an experience at a church association meeting that was so egregious that I was compelled to write about it. If you haven’t read that post, it’s worth the read. (
I once had a pastor tell me that the reason Eve was deceived instead of Adam was because the serpent knew that women were totally susceptible to believing a lie. Basically, that she was an easy mark, so-to-speak, which is why she was deceived and Adam was not. In so many words, he said that Satan figured he had a better chance with her because she was a woman, and the fact he was successful in deceiving her proved his point was true. This pastor went on to say that the reason women “as a class of humanity” are more susceptible to deception than men, is because it is part of our “innate female psyche.” By nature, Eve was not equipped to make the kind of decisions that the serpent presented to her, because she was not capable of weighing objective facts and coming to an appropriate decision. Although this pastor did state that there were exceptions to the fact that women make decisions based on a value system rather than on objective facts, he also stated these stereotypes are backed up by scripture AND scientific data (like the Meyers Briggs test). Whether you are a man or a woman, I imagine you are scratching your head right about now. Trust me, it didn’t sit well with me at the time either, but I later realized no amount of discussion or rebuttal could ever change the heart of that pastor. Only God can do that, and it is for God alone to handle.
The Bible tells us that in Christ, we are all the same (Galatians 3:28). Of course, we all fulfill different roles in life, and God calls us all to individual places of service for which He also equips us. Having different traits, backgrounds, or abilities should not divide us. God sees us the same, even though we are each unique in so many ways. Different is not worse. Different is not less. Different does not give us license, as people of faith, to look down on anyone or consider them to be less than we are. Yes, there are many things God tells us to refrain from or be mindful of, but He reveals to us in Proverbs 6:16-19 the seven things He actually hates:
What a contrast to what so many churches and leaders have become these days. Jesus doesn’t say to love your neighbors unless he/she is of a different race or religion. He doesn’t say to love your neighbor as long as he/she isn’t a homosexual or because he/she gossips, drinks or acts in other ways that seem contrary to God’s word. He doesn’t give us permission to not love anyone, because He didn’t exclude anyone from His love. He so deeply loved every single person, even those who hated and abused Him, that He was willing to die for them…for us. Yes, there are many behaviors and activities in which He doesn’t want us to engage, but I find it interesting that what God chose to list, through His inspired word, as things He truly hates are those behaviors that reveal our pride, arrogance, and ignorance. He is concerned with our hearts and our character. We are all sinners, and if we try to hide behind our church buildings or cover up our prejudiced opinions of others being beneath us, then we have not only failed in the two commandments that Jesus declared hold up every other directive, but we have displayed the very behaviors that God hates. After all, the only antidote for prejudice is humility.
Happy New Year’s Eve! Every new year brings with it the hope for positive changes and experiences ahead for us. We reflect on the past year and consider what didn’t go as we expected or how we didn’t do the things we originally planned. Maybe your year has been filled with more successes and joy than you even imagined, or maybe it was filled with changes that brought loss and pain to your heart. Either way, we still seem to have this innate sense of reflection when a new year is about to begin, but why? There is something so refreshing about newness in life. It is why so many people love the season of spring so much, there is new life blooming all around us. New life is exciting and reminds us that even when the ground is dark and cold, there is life beneath it just waiting to explode into view. I guess it’s much the same sensation as we approach a new year. Winter is raging, but it feels as though a newness of life is growing, waiting to burst forth into view. New life represents a replenishment of hope. It’s a burst of energy. It’s a new focus or new commitment. But mostly it is a new perspective or a new vision of what lies ahead.
Sometimes God replenishes us and refreshes us through the difficult processes of letting go. I recently took several months off from my official responsibilities at church, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I prayed about it over and over, as it is not my nature to take a break of any kind. I always scheduled vacations and business trips around being able to be in my place of service, so to know God was leading me to take a break from what I’ve felt I needed to do really rattled my brain! The key phrase to that last sentence is “what I’ve felt.” When we insist on operating under what we feel instead of what God is asking of us, it creates the most challenging disjoints. For one thing, we are called to walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). If God wants us to walk by faith and not in what we can see with our own eyes, I’m certain He doesn’t want us walking by what we feel either! Our emotions can wreak havoc on the direction God is leading us in any situation, because we want to feel like what we are doing makes sense. I’ll speak for myself here: I don’t want to feel like what I’m doing is stupid or that others may see me as making decisions that appear to be rash or thoughtless. I don’t want to appear irresponsible or flaky. I don’t want to follow God’s leading only to have others judging me to be things I am not. Since it is the holiday season, it reminds me of how Joseph probably had many of those same thoughts when he realized that none of his friends or family were going to believe (or be privy to) all the details of his pregnant fiancee or why he didn’t “put her away.” He knew how people would look at him or talk about him, but he walked the path God laid out for him and let God take care of the details.
We really need to remember that each new year doesn’t just begin on January 1st. Every breath is the beginning of a new year. Every heartbeat is the beginning of what our lives will become. Living with that kind of refreshed perspective brings hope for a better future, but whether or not anything changes depends on how we view ourselves in comparison to our Savior. Do I really think I’m smarter than Him or have more resources? Do I really think I’m more enlightened or understand more? He knows and sees what I am unable to, and He has already planned ways around or through the maze of my life. I need to remember He is working things for my ultimate good. I need to stop trying to cut openings in the dead ends just because I think I’m smart enough to see a better way and strong enough to create it. I need to remember that I am replenished when I step back, breathe, and follow wherever He leads no matter how it appears to others. I need to remember the depth of my Father’s love for me, and that everything He does or allows is is bathed in that pure and perfect love.
If you are like me, we need to let go of what we think is best for us, or the worry and fear that comes with what others might think of us, and trust what our Father says to us in His word: “For I know the plans I have for you,”says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) His plans for our successes far exceed our ability to create our own, and His replenishment trumps our “resolutions.” Every. Single. Time.
The Cadence of My Soul 