Mother’s Day isn’t a celebration for everyone, and for many people, Mother’s Day can be a particularly painful time of year. That can be true for those who are grieving the loss of loved ones, are estranged from family members, or facing fertility issues, among other circumstances. And the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day can be especially fraught with reminders urging people to shop and celebrate. So in worship this morning, Mother’s Day 2022, we offered this prayer for all women.
On this day of celebrating your love, Holy God in Christ Jesus, we lift to you the women in our lives – those who have given us life, those who have loved us, those who have blessed us, and those who have taught us.
May your blessing pour out upon the women who gave us birth and those beautiful, strong women who have been mothers to us along our journey.
We praise you, O Lord, for your gift of motherly love – both gentle and fierce, both strong and humble, both kind and true.
Where we have been so blessed, we give our grateful praise, for you have provided loving hands that have worked so hard to raise us, cared enough to correct us, and blessed us in ways we cannot fully know as children.
We call forth your compassion upon every mother who has knowingly or unknowingly caused pain and suffering. And so, we lift to you our mothers, so imperfect but also so wounded by the world.
Pour out your healing mercy upon our mothers this day, no matter what they have done or left undone.
We ask this because we believe in your healing, and we believe in your love, and we believe that you love every mother, good or bad, every woman, full of grace or filled with regrets.
Where we have failed because we did not know better, help us to forgive ourselves. Where we have seen your face in any woman who has been to us a guiding force, we give thanks. For where they have loved, they have kept your word.
We lift to you the broken heart of every mother who has watched her child die of hunger, every mother who had been a victim of abuse, every woman who stands in protest against a world that massacres her children and renames them “collateral damage,” every woman whose dreams of motherhood went unfulfilled.
We lift to you the prayer of every mother who has ever loved and lost, along with the prayer of every woman who feels like she has no one to love.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our brother, to the Great God who is Father and Mother of us all. Amen.