There are so many women who have been moms to me that it would take up a whole blog post just to list them all. This one’s for y’all.
This morning I went to Servant Church, the Austin church I call home. It’s full of young families and there are so many mothers there- new mothers and grandmothers, biological mothers and mothers who adopt all children in their vicinity. It’s a good place to spend Mother’s Day, especially if you can’t spend it with your real mom.
Valerie, a pastor at Pflugerville UMC, is married to Eric, the pastor at Servant Church, and she preached today. She preached about the complicated nature of Mother’s Day, and the pain it can involve for women who have lost children or cannot have them, for adoptive mothers facing judgmental comments, for children who have lost their mothers, for women who have chosen not to have children. She preached about the joy that can come from being a mother. She preached about pregnancy and the embodiment of communion. And she did it while pregnant and, at the beginning, holding her 3-year-old son. It was a beautiful sermon and a beautiful image (and it made my feminist soul so happy). But it also made me think about motherhood and all of the wonderful moms I get to have in my life.
Motherhood scares me- not just the time and effort involved, but the fact that you have little lives in your hands. Motherhood scares me because I’m afraid I will disappoint my children. I am afraid that they will have scars I did not mean to give them. I am afraid they will be hurt and I won’t be able to help them. The world is so large and children start so small- how could someone ever find the courage to bring something so vulnerable into the world? It takes someone so brave- an eshet chayil, a woman of valor.
I have never been disappointed by my mother, Kathy. I wrote my college essay about my mom, even though all the books tell you not to. She is me and I am her, in so many ways. She is who I fight with, because I know her like a second skin- or maybe a first, since hers was the skin that protected me before even my own did. I know what words will aggravate her and which to never, ever say, because they are the same for me. She has taught me to speak nicely or not at all, but she has also taught me how to make words drip with sarcasm and the appropriate times to say “shit” (like when the garage door shatters the back window of the mini-van).
Motherhood scares me because my mother was so good. She is one of the smartest ladies I know. She is brave and honest and protects me still with the fiercest of loves in place of that layer of skin. I am honored to be her daughter.
And I get the great blessing of having moms who are there for me when my real mom can’t be. When I had an allergic reaction on a mission trip, the moms of Alliance UMC drove me to the ER. When I spent all weekend in Virginia last week, my grandma and my Aunt Angel fed me and made sure I was safe. For the last two years, I’ve been discipled by a wonderful mother named Rachael who has taught me how to be a better woman and (maybe, someday far, far in the future, emphasis on maybe) a better mother.
So, like Valerie said this morning, Mother’s Day is so complicated. It can be a day full of joy and full of pain. I am so lucky to get to be sappy and joyful and overcome with the love all of my mothers have shown me over the years. Happy Mother’s Day. Each and every one of you is an eshet chayil.
Mama, you are the reason I know the love that is Jesus’s love for us. You taught me how to live like Mary, like Deborah, like Ruth and Esther and Mary Magdalene- full of the Holy Spirit, standing strong and tall. I love you [more].
