This weekend – Sunday 30thMarch - millions of families will celebrate the amazing women who are Mums, Grannies and Great-Grannies. It’s a day to honour, appreciate and thank those who do, and have done so much for us. Hopefully, it’s a time when we take some of the heavy load so many Mums bear the rest of the year. Perhaps we can ensure that everyone in our family shares the workload of running the house all the time! How will you show your Mum your love and appreciation?
While it’s a joyful day for lots, it can also be a difficult day for others. Many women long to be Mums and are struggling with issues that mean it’s a hard or impossible journey. In the complexities of family life, many have difficult relationships with their Mums; still others have broken relationships with their children. Some Mums have children with life limiting conditions; others have had children who’ve passed away, while many have lost their Mum as children or adults. Still others never knew their mother and thousands of children await foster care and adoption. For all these folks and many others, the everyday ache of their situation can find that Mothering Sunday magnifies their pain.
God compares himself to a loving, caring mother in many verses of the Bible;‘liftingher child up to her cheek’(Book of Hosea), or beautifully:“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you”(Isaiah 66). God even highlights his perfect love for us:“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”Jesus uses a similar image to Jerusalem:“how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings”(Matthew 23)
Jesus invites us all into his family, whether we’re a good mum/child or not. The Church – with all its flaws – is called to be a family of forgiveness with God our perfect Mother and Father, offering radical unconditional, inclusive love, gathering us up in her arms, never letting us go.
I hope we have women in our lives – Mums, Grannies, and like-a-mum (bonus) Mums – we can celebrate this week. I also hope this week we hear God gently calling, inviting us to know Him as the comforting and protecting Father and Mother.