Pastor’s Corner: Mother’s Day is Complicated

May 10, 2023

Mother’s Day is a celebration of family, a time that honors some of the women in our lives, a day that lives out part of the ancient commandment’s directive to “honor your father and mother.” It is also a day I greet with some reluctance and even sorrow. Mother’s Day, for me and for others, is… complicated.

I loved my mother, but I loved her as a child. She died when I was nineteen, so we never developed that special relationship between a mother and her adult son. My children could only know her through my memories. With each Mother’s Day I recall our loss.

I’m hardly alone. Mother’s Day is poignant for those who lost their mothers as youth or elders, recently or many years ago. Mother’s Day is hard for those who have struggled with relationships with their mothers, or who have struggled with relationships with their children. Mother’s Day is hard for moms who can’t make ends meet for their households, and for those who have wanted to be moms and have not.

This Sunday I will honor my mother in memory, and my stepmother (my father remarried after some years) in conversation. I will pray for the struggling mothers and struggling children. I will celebrate the creativity and commitment that families use to live in harmony with one another. I will ask God’s blessing on the children and on all those, related by blood or by love, who bring a mother’s love to them. I will thank God for mothering us all.

In peace,

Pastor Eric

The photo of Pastor Eric and his mother, Maren Anderson, is from 1981.