Our tremendous LOVE…
Mothers’ Day is hard; families are hard, so I suppose it makes sense that a holiday honoring a parent would be difficult to navigate. For many, Mothers’ Day is a wonderful day where we honor and pay tribute to someone who has filled our lives with love and wisdom. For others, it is an extremely difficult holiday to navigate. I know of people who skip church on Mothers’ Day because of the fact that many congregations make a big event of recognizing and honoring mothers.
Social media was a-buzz with so many posting pictures and tributes to moms, or vocalizing how much they miss their moms. A colleague in a Lexington church posted about how no less than a dozen individuals contacted her the week prior to Mothers’ Day with anxieties about that particular holiday: mothers who have lost children, women who could not conceive, an adoptive mother whose son was estranged from her, children whose mothers had passed away, women who willingly chose not to have children, mothers whose only child was actively an addict and engaged in many heartbreaking, frustrating and fearful activities because of their addictions, and many other complicated reasons why this is such a difficult holiday to mark within the life of the church.
Another clergy colleague shared with me a cartoon with two frames, titled: “Clergy are darned if they do and darned if they don’t.” In the first frame you see a pastor in clerical robes standing in front of a parishioner who had their finger out and was visibly admonishing him with, “Why did you completely ignore Mothers’ Day? We have so many wonderful mothers in our congregation who were heartbroken that you forgot.” The next frame was the same cleric in the same robes, but standing in front of another parishioner with the same visible admonishment stance saying, “Why did you make such a big to-do about Mothers’ Day? Don’t you know there are women in our church who couldn’t have children, who’ve lost children, and children who’ve lost their mothers?”
Many things in the life of the church are like that. There’s no one perfect way to address the needs of every congregant. I feel so very blessed that those dichotomies are a rarity here. No one was displeased that we didn’t make a big fuss. No one was displeased that we acknowledged the honorary day. We were busy celebrating the first annual Paris Storyfest and helping a grieving family with the passing of a beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. We get many things right around here, but I think the most important one that we do so well with is LOVE. Our folks have such a tremendous amount of love for one another, all those little things become unimportant. We know our priorities: We love God and we love God’s people. Anything beyond that is trivial. We do the work that God calls us to do in the best way that we can do it and hope that along the way, others come to know of our tremendous LOVE.
Thank you for allowing me to be on this journey of ministry with you!
Blessings,
Tracy