Not the mom I thought I would be

When I was pregnant the first time, we chose not to find out the baby’s gender before birth. Although we didn’t officially know, we were both quite sure that the baby was a girl. And then the baby was born and instead of the little girl we had expected, we had a baby boy. And we were surprised.

And Aaron wasn’t just a boy, but a boy who didn’t sleep unless he was being held. And the combination of the exhaustion, and the postpartum hormones, and the surprise over him being a boy rather than a girl, all combined one day and I remember telling him, as I was changing his diaper, and he was screaming, and I was exhausted, and I was crying, “you are not what I expected.”

And he wasn’t.

And he hasn’t been what I expected his entire life. Almost all those ways have been good. But they have caused me to re-evaluate how I needed to parent him. They have caused me to re-evaluate how I needed to advocate for him. They have caused me to re-evaluate the type of parent that I needed to be for him. And the same has been true for Clayton, albeit without all the postpartum new mother freak out.

I am not the parent that I thought I would be when I first started this parenting journey 20 years ago. Because neither one of my boys has been the child/teenager/young adult that I thought they were going to be. So I’ve had to adjust. And I’ve had to learn to be the mother that they needed me to be, not the mother I thought I was going to be.  A mother who over the years has learned more about Barney, Veggietales, Thomas the Tank Engine, the US presidents, theatre, band, choir, art, and art supplies and techniques than I ever thought I would know or need to know.

I have also learned more about asthma, lung diseases, immune deficiencies, and all the treatments for all those things, along with how to deal with insurance companies and disability offices. I have learned to administer medications through a PICC line, administer percussive therapy, insert infusion needles. I have learned to conduct business from hospital rooms and waiting rooms and doctor’s office treatment rooms. I know more about the process of plasma donation and production of immunoglobulin and IGG levels than I ever thought I would want or need to know.

Because that is the mother that Aaron needs me to be.

I have also learned more than I ever knew there was to know about sexual orientation, physical, and romantic attraction, gender identity, gender expression, and gender presentation. I have learned about the history and the context of Bible verses that I had never before bothered to study. I have learned what businesses, churches, and universities are LGBTQ+ friendly and affirming, and which are not. I have learned to love and cherish an entire new village of people that I never had reason to believe I would even know much less come to consider some of my favorite people.

Because that is the mother that Clayton needs me to be.

And the truth is, becoming the mother that these two boys need me to be has changed who I have become as a person. It has broadened my view of the world. It has made me more compassionate, more empathetic, more kind, and more loving. It has also made me less fearful of change and confrontation, more outspoken, more sure of who I am and what I believe, and more articulate in stating those things.

Because that is the mother that they need me to be.

That is the mother I need myself to be. 

That is the person that I need myself to be.

And maybe most important of all, that is the person that God needs me to be in this world.

For my own boys, and for others God has placed in my path.

Perspective

As an Enneagram 9, routine is my happy place; but my #1 strength on strength finders is adaptability which means that typically I go with the flow and take things as they come. Those two things seem in conflict but for the most part they aren’t.

Except when they are.

I’ve been hearing rumors for the past couple of months of changes within the court system in some of our rural counties that may change the way that my cases are handled in my county. But they’ve just been rumors that I haven’t been able to find any clarification on, and none of my local people seem to know anything about them.

And then over the past week I’ve heard more detailed rumblings, and this morning in court, I heard things that made the change seem more definite. Still, nobody locally seems to know what is going on and if we are going to be affected and exactly how the whole thing is going to work.

And so my need for routine overcame my strength of adaptability, and I was moderately freaking out.

In the process of my moderate freak out, I was talking to one of the CPS supervisors about the situation, and I was just really complaining. “It sure would be nice if they got input from the people being directly affected,” I said. Followed by, “I just don’t like it when decisions are being made about my life without consulting me, and I have no control over it.”

And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, it was like a lightbulb went off.

I stopped and looked at her. Because it hit her about the same time it hit me.

“This must be just what it feels like for the kids we work with,” I said.

Suddenly everything fell into the proper perspective.

Because at the end of the day, whatever happens with this work situation, I still have my home to go to.

Where my family lives.

Where my pets are.

Which has all my clothes, my books, my things.

I get to sleep in my own bed with my own pillow and shower in my own shower  and dress in my own clothes out of my own closet.

I get to go to my own church on Sunday and see my own friends this week.

Unlike the kids in the court system who too often lose absolutely everything in their lives that gives them comfort and a sense of safety. The kids whose lives are affected by major decisions being made with often very little input from them about it. The kids who the system too often fails to consult about what is going on with their present and their future.

I don’t know what will happen with the court situation. Whether I will be affected or whether I won’t.

What I do know is this: the next time that I make a decision about a child’s life, I will try to be a bit more aware of how it must feel to have decisions made about your life that you may or may not be a part of or even be aware of until it’s done. 

All Rise

I’ve worked in the court system for more than 25 years. Whenever the judge comes into the courtroom, he or she is preceded by the court bailiff who says “All Rise.” And everyone stands up, and remains standing, until the judge tells them they may be seated. The same happens with a jury. When the jury comes into the courtroom from the jury room, the bailiff says “All Rise for the jury” and everyone stands up and remains standing until the jury is seated.

Both are a way of showing respect to those who are going to be making hard decisions.

While I’ve been a part of both of those experiences literally thousands of times over the years, I’ve never really thought much about either of the practices.

Until two weeks ago while sitting in a jury trial with particularly difficult facts.  It was a criminal trial, a companion case to one of my CPS cases, involving the death of an 8 week old who had starved to death. The testimony was heartbreaking, causing, on more than one occasion, tears both on the witness stand, in the gallery, and in the jury box. It made me think of the many ugly trials I have been a part of over the years, and how hard it must be for most jurors to sit and listen to things so far outside the scope of their everyday lives.

I thought about how hard it can be for those of us who do this work for a living to see and hear the things we do day after day after day. I wondered about the ability of many of us to compartmentalize the things we hear and see, as a defense mechanism, to allow us to live the rest of our lives without the constant effects of the PTSD that we ourselves sometimes develop as a reaction to all the secondary trauma we experience.

I thought about those times, like two weeks ago, when after listening to the trial of the starved 8 week old, I listened to the beginning of a sentencing hearing on another criminal case a companion case to one of my cases, with another child, this one older, who too had been starved to death. In the middle of watching these two trials, I observed one of the most emotional goodbye visits I’ve ever observed. And despite all the years I have done this work, and all the skills I have at compartmentalizing the trauma, the week was just too much. It was one of those weeks which occurs from time to time when there is just too much to compartmentalize effectively, and too much to be able to mentally and intellectually and emotionally process, and the only reaction a person can possibly have is to just shut down or fall apart. I did a bit of both, to be frank.

And so as I reflected on that week, and I reflected on the practice of standing as the judge or jury enters the courtroom, I began to wonder if maybe the significance of the “All Rise” isn’t just about the respect for the office of the judge or of the juror. Maybe it’s more than just an acknowledgement of their important role as decision maker. Maybe it’s a recognition of the fact that hard stuff is about to happen. Important stuff is about to happen. Stuff that most people know little or nothing about is about to be discussed and decided. And there is gravity to that. There is honor in that.

So for all my fellow prosecutors, investigators, law enforcement, support staff, attorneys, caseworkers, CASA advocates, court reporters, bailiffs, court clerks, and judges, I honor and respect the job that you do, in hearing and seeing hard things. Keep up the good work.

And the next time you hear and respond to the command of “All Rise” do so in deference to the judge or the jury. But do so as well in recognition of your own role in what can be an incredibly difficult job.

Holding hands

It was the image of their hands entwined that broke my heart the most. My boys tell me it’s called “waffling”, when you hold hands with a person that way. And that it’s much more personal than “pancaking” where your palms touch but your fingers stay apart. Waffling is reserved for only those you really love, they tell me.

And this little boy really does love his mama, despite the anger and the confusion and the sadness he is feeling on this day, his last time to visit with her after she has given up her parental rights to him.

I am grateful to see him finally sitting in her lap, this last time, when he had spent the 20 or so minutes before, by himself, sitting across the room, his head down on the back of the chair he sat straddling. He had been so angry and in so much pain that the waves of both emotions radiated off his little body in almost visible waves.

But finally now, in these last minutes he will be with her, he sits in his mama’s lap. He’s a little big really to be sitting there, his legs hanging all the way to the floor. She holds him as she must have when he was a toddler, in her arms, kissing his face. He doesn’t wipe the kisses away this time as he did two weeks before, when he didn’t know what was coming, but when I wanted to badly to go in the room and tell him, don’t wipe away the kisses, sweetie. You’re going to want to keep them. You’re going to want to keep them always.

He sits there, his fingers entwined with hers, as she whispers in his ear, as she did with his two sisters, all the things that she needs to say to him while she still has the chance. This little boy who once grew in her body and under her heart. This little boy for whom I’m sure she once had great plans and big dreams. This little boy who will grow up with a different family because the hold methamphetamine has on her is stronger than the hold her little man has on her hand.

And tears leak from my eyes for the 5^th time this visit, my heart breaking as I wonder, how many more times must I watch this play out? How many more times will I have to witness children saying goodbye to their parents because of the hold that drugs or other demons have on their parents? How many times? And the answer is as long as I am here. As long as I do this work. However long that may be. Because I owe it to these children. I owe it to these parents. I owe it to my workers. And I owe it to myself. 

May I never forget the heartbreak that comes when I ask a judge or a jury to bring a legal end to a family. May I never forget the image of two hands entwined, for the last time, as a little boy says goodbye to the person in the world who is supposed to love him most and put him first. 

May I never stop praying for his healing, and for hers, and for new healthy lives for them both. So that some day, when this little boy looks for his mother, as I have faith he probably will, he will find her healthy and whole. And he will be able to build a new relationship with her that is life giving and love affirming. And that one day she will have the opportunity to waffle hands with her grandchildren, the way she once did with this sweet little boy, on the day that they said goodbye.

Grace for the in between spaces

Yesterday morning started off with one of my favorite things to get to do In court, which was to watch two precious little ones get adopted into their forever families. One precious little one who came to us because of drug abuse by his parents and one because of sexual abuse by the person who was supposed to keep her safe. 

These adoptions were able to happen because, within the past few months, I went to court and terminated their parents’ rights. 

There are many things that I like about my job. I love the people that I work with. I am grateful for the opportunity to feel like I am able to make a positive difference in people’s lives. I thrive on being in the courtroom. I am blessed to get to love on babies visiting in my office. I enjoy all the people at the courthouse. 

But I hate terminating people parental rights. I hate it. 

I don’t hate it because it’s the wrong thing because sometimes it is absolutely the right thing and the only choice. 

I hate it because it’s incredibly sad, even heartbreaking. 

I hate it because it requires me to be mean to people on the witness stand. It causes me to tear people down when every pastoral instinct within me sees the brokenness inside them and wants to build them up. 

I hate it because at the end of the day, I have been instrumental in causing the end of a family. And while I’m not the reason that these people are in the situation they are in, I still feel the weight of what I do. 

While the end result may mean a safe new family for a precious child, that new life doesn’t come without a lost past. And although that’s the right thing, it’s a sad thing. 

I spent all day yesterday, all day one day last week, and part of a day the week before, in termination trials. Trials that came about because of issues with substance abuse, mental illness, or family histories of incarceration, and substance abuse that have caused parents to be unable to provide safe and stable homes for their children. 

I have had to be firm, even mean at times, in the process of proving their patterns of poor judgment and disfunction which leave them unable to appropriately parent their children. 

It’s something I’m good at. But although I’m good at it, it’s not one of the talents I most admire about myself. 

And the more I follow this ministry call, the more I recognize the dichotomy between where I have been and where I am going. 

It is a fascinating thing to watch the new person I am becoming, as I transition into who God had called me to be. 

But it is not without growing pains. 

And a sense of sadness at watching the person I’ve known for so many years began to fade away as the new me begins to take her place. 

And gratitude at the grace for the in-between spaces. 

Trauma doesn't come in tidy boxes

I have struggled with this post for a while. It’s one I started to write probably two months ago. I come back to it from time to time and add some things, delete some things, change some words. I know it’s one I need to write. I think it’s probably one somebody needs to read. But unlike most of the things that I write, the words have not leaked from my heart and my brain onto the keyboard and onto the page. Each one has come with hesitation, and question, and discomfort. I have told myself several times that perhaps I am having such difficulty writing this because it’s not something I am supposed to put into words, or share. And yet I find myself drawn back to it, again and again.

And then, today, I read a blog post written by a dear friend about the pain that she has been keeping inside and refusing to look at, and the words resonated so deeply in my heart and in my soul. And I realized that the reason I have had such a difficult time with this writing is because it requires me to talk about things, about concepts, about feelings, that I have been refusing to look at in myself.

And so I sit back down to try again, with the prayer that, through my words, someone will read what they need to read today. That they might be comforted or encouraged by what they read. That they might realize that as alone as they may feel in their pain, they are not alone. They are never alone.

…

I read an article recently with a phrase that has stuck with me since: “Trauma doesn’t come in tidy boxes. People unpack it in different ways.”

Let me say that again.

Trauma doesn’t come in tidy boxes.

People unpack it in different ways.

Sometimes people experience abuse during childhood, adolescence, or adulthood and this abuse changes them and affects them in ways that they may not realize for much of their lives.

Sometimes, despite seeming on the surface like they are fine, there is deep trauma from this abuse that is buried underneath. Trauma that they may begin to experience in ways far more pronounced than they ever have before, and at times completely unexpected. Sometimes that happens when the person really starts to work through the initial trauma. Sometimes it happens when the person begins to realize the abuse, and the resulting behaviors, weren’t their fault and begins to look at the experience through a fresh lens.

Sometimes a person finds that even after many years of thinking that wounds have healed, there are still residual effects of the trauma that make life difficult at times. Call it a trauma reaction if you want, a traumatic stress response, PTSD. Whatever it’s called, the reaction is very real. The feelings that it invokes are very, very real.

It doesn’t matter if it’s been 4 months or 40 years.

It is possible to bury trauma for a long time. To build walls and bark around it. To bury it deep underground, and cover it with tons and tons of dirt and grass and trees. But eventually, that trauma will come to the surface. Maybe it’s when the person is exposed to someone else’s trauma and that triggers their own trauma memories. Maybe it’s when the person is doing a lot of self-work in making themselves vulnerable, and they discover that the walls they have torn down or the bark they have stripped off to allow access to their heart and their soul were the same walls and bark that were holding those trauma feelings in check. 

Maybe the survival techniques they have always used to deal with the trauma just don’t work anymore and they have to find some new way of coping, but before they can do that, they have to figure out what they are coping with. 

Maybe as they peel back and work through layers of feelings, they discover layers underneath they didn't even know existed.

Maybe there have always been trauma effects, but the person was just really good at hiding those effects and carrying the effects of that trauma themselves, instead of being comfortable saying no to the things that make them feel the effects. 

The thing with looking at feelings and experiences in a new way, of discovering feelings and discovering new ways of coping when your old ways of coping aren’t working anymore, is that you can’t always go back to who you were. You don’t always want to go back to who you were. Because the who you were of before is sometimes not the full version of who you are able to be. But sometimes when you become somebody new, the people who have known the old you get scared. Because they don’t know this new you. And just as you wonder sometimes if you still fit into the old life you used to live, they wonder if they fit in the new life that you are beginning to grow into.

The process of working through trauma, growing out of trauma, and growing through trauma isn’t easy. It requires a lot of shining light on places that have been dark for a really long time. And when you are used to hiding in the dark, the light can be awfully scary. When you are used to hiding in the dark, and suddenly the light comes in, it’s tempting to want to cower in the shadows. Because the light can be awfully bright. It can make you feel awfully exposed. People can see you more clearly in the light. Being seen doesn’t always make you feel very safe.

And shining light on abuse and trauma also causes light to shine on decisions that have been made because of abuse and trauma. Decisions that may bring their own set of shame. Decisions that may bring their own kind of guilt. The realization that decisions that have always seemed to be independent of the abuse are actually integrally related to that abuse is disconcerting. And seeing the motivation behind those decisions in the light of that abuse or trauma sometimes makes you realize that things you thought were your burden and guilt to carry, are instead your wounds to heal. When you have spent years trying to forgive yourself for things you have done, learning instead to forgive others can be hard. When you realize that you can forgive yourself for things not because the decisions you made were hurtful and wrong but because you were doing the best you could do at the time to take care of yourself, isn’t as easy at it may sound. Reframing yourself as a victim is sometimes necessary to understand the reality of who you are. But it’s not fun. It’s not comfortable. And it’s not pretty.

I had coffee a couple of months ago with someone who works in hospital chaplaincy, and when I asked her how she ended up feeling called to this area, what she said was this, “When I was going through my divorce, the most helpful thing was people just sitting with me in my pain. Not telling me how I was supposed to act or how I was supposed to feel. Just sitting with me. I wanted to be able to share that gift with others.”

For all of you who sit with people in their pain, without telling them how to act or how to feel, thank you, and keep it up. Your gift is greater than you may realize.

If you are sitting in your own pain, give yourself some grace. Forgive yourself for the things that need to be forgiven… the right things, not the things you’ve possibly been feeling guilt about for far too long.

If you love someone who is going through their own kind of growth and reconstruction, and sitting in their pain, be patient and give them some grace. You may not understand what they went through. You may not understand what they are going through now. But trust that they are doing the best they can with the tools that they have, and whether you understand the things they need to help them heal, trust that they know what they need, and let them have it.

Because trauma doesn’t come in tidy boxes.

People unpack it in different ways.

Why I Stay

I spent more than 2 hours this evening in a Methodist Church in Dallas with more than 400 other Methodist LGBTQ+ allies and parents and community members, listening to each other speak of the hurt and reaction to the results of the general conference in February, and of the changes within their church as a result. I listened to the Bishop for the North Texas Conference speak about the effects of the conference votes, and the way forward out of the hurt, and the movement within the Methodist Church unlike any he has ever seen. And my heart broke at the feelings of hopelessness that I heard from some of the people. At the heartbreak, once again, of being told that who they are is wrong. At the pain of one more time being told that they are an abomination in the view of God and of the church. And yet I also heard middle age white cisgender men speak of their privilege and of their realization that it was no longer acceptable for them to remain silent in the face of injustice and inequality.

I sat with my pastor and with other members of our Open Heart ministry, and I was so very grateful to be a part of a congregation and a people who are meeting people where they are, loving them as they are, and affirming them just as God made them to be.

I spent the first 48 years of my life in a traditional fundamental denomination. In the last 5-10 years there, I had begun to question some of the things that I had always been taught. One of those things I began to question was homosexuality and whether it was a choice. Whether it was a sin. I had come to the conclusion through searching my own heart and soul that it was neither. That transformation of my thinking was a gift when my youngest son at age 13 came to us questioning his sexual orientation. It was his questioning, and the knowledge that he would not be supported in the church we had been in all of his life, that was one of the reasons we left the church we had been an active part of for more than 18 years. Not because of the people, but because of the theology. 

Two years after he first began questioning his sexuality, Clayton came out as gay. What we learned later was that he had spent much of those two years praying for God to change him. Praying that God would make him straight. Wondering why he was being punished and why God wasn’t answering his prayers. It took two years and the love of the other youth and the pastor of the new church we had been attending for him to realize that he was gay because that’s how God had made him. That God made him that way. And God loved him that way.

We ended up at the Methodist church not because of anything we knew about the view of the church on homosexuality, but because we saw the involvement of the church and the pastor in the community. We saw that they truly lived out Jesus' commands to Love God and Love One Another. I didn’t learn of the incompatibility language within the book of discipline until long after I knew the heart of my pastor and the heart of my church. If I had known that, I don’t know that I would have brought my gay child there.  That would have been a bit like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, if you will.

When I did learn of the language, and of all that would be going on with general conference, I began to learn all I could. I was both hopeful and apprehensive. I was disappointed to find that the Methodist Church as a whole wasn't as affirming as my own church was, but I was grateful that at least conversations about inclusivity and equality were being had. I supported the one church plan because it was a step in the right direction but I felt in my heart it wasn’t enough. But I was willing to stick it out with the faith that God would use the human cracking open of a door that had been shut and would slam that door open completely.

I had faith that would happen because that’s what I had seen God do within our church within our own LGBTQ+ support ministry. What started as a very modest hope of providing support to our LGBTQ+ families and allies has grown into a ministry that has had impact more far-reaching than we could have ever imagined. What started as a hope of meeting an unmet need in our church and in our community has spread far beyond what we would have ever dreamed. Part of the reason that it has spread the way that it has is in reaction to the results of general conference.

I know that, but for the work that we were doing in this area, many LGBTQ+ families would have left the Methodist Church because of the heartbreaking decisions made at general conference. Mine would have been one of them. 

I’ve been asked more than once why I stay in a denomination that says how my child was made is incompatible with Christian teaching.

I have had to defend on more than one occasion, both to others, and to myself, why I choose to stay.

I stay because while judicial counsels have been meeting and determining doctrinal legalities, while political maneuverings have been taking place to elect delegates for what is likely to be another contentious and hurtful general conference in 2020, while some people are gloating, and others are grieving, we at our church are working. We are following Jesus’ command to love God and to love others. All others. And we will continue this work regardless of whether we end up calling ourselves United Methodists or something totally different. We will continue this work because it is the right thing to do.

That is why I stay.  Because of this work.

Because of this work that we are doing to support our LGBTQ+ adults, our allies, and our LGBTQ+ youth, there have been people who previously have been unable or unwilling to step foot into a church in years who are now back in those seats, praising God, being loved by a church family, and using their gifts and talents to bless others. 

Because of this work, there are people who are healing from wounds that were inflicted on them by people wielding theological knives in the name of what they term as Christianity.

Because of this work, there are queer youth who are finding their voices, and speaking their truth, and absorbing their worth into the core of their very beings.

Because of this work, there are adults who have struggled all their lives with the idea of being both gay and being Christian, who are learning that they are loved by God, absolutely, and unconditionally, not DESPITE of who they are but BECAUSE of who they are.

Because of this work, there have been countless people who have learned to claim their belovedness as children of a loving God, made with a purpose, and for a purpose. Fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of a God who loves them just as they are.

I pray that the Methodist Church finds a way to live out the call for social justice and love of people that I have seen it live out in every other area of injustice within our society. But whatever the church decides, my church will continue the work that we are called to.  As for me and my church, we will serve the God who created us.  Each of us.

Making the world a little less cruel and heartless

Clayton’s end of year banquet for UIL/Theatre/Debate was last night. There were lots of different tables set up throughout the room, with adults and kids spread throughout the space. When we first arrived, Clayton sat at one table with a good friend, but after a while moved to another table with a group of other kids, after they motioned for he and his friend to join them. I noticed after he moved, that there was one kid who was sitting at the end of that second  table all by himself.

I recognized pretty quickly that the boy who was sitting by himself was the same boy who told Clayton a few months ago that gay people were going to hell because they refused to repent of their sinful ways.

I must admit that mama bear mode kicked in for a fast minute, and I had to restrain myself from going over and telling the kid off. But I didn’t. But I did sit there a moment and gloat about the fact that he was sitting by himself, whereas Clayton was surrounded by a group of friends, laughing and talking.

And then I began to be bothered by the fact that he was sitting there by himself. And because I have a soft heart, even for those whom I feel may not deserve it, I felt bad for the boy. So I sent Clayton a text and said, hey, maybe you should invite the kid at the end of the table by himself to come join y’all.

I saw Clayton look up, see who it was, and send a response text to me of sure. And then he did, without hesitation. He called out and asked the boy to come join his group. The boy told him that he was waiting on someone and Clayton said okay and went back to his conversation.

When it was time to go get food, many of the kids moved from where they had been and Clayton ended up joining a different table with a different group of kids. Because my boy doesn’t meet a stranger.

Eventually the kids this other boy were waiting on came, and he wasn’t sitting alone anymore. And I was glad.

I spent the rest of the evening wondering if this boy had been taught unconditional love for all instead of judgment for those considered unworthy, if he would have spouted the hatred to Clayton that he did.

If he had been taught unconditional love instead of judgment, might he have instead extended grace, as did Clayton, to someone with whom you may not agree, but to whom you choose to show love and acceptance, despite your differences.

Clayton did not hesitate to open his circle to someone new, even someone with whom he has major theological and philosophical differences of opinion. Perhaps we should all learn to practice that same gift of grace and love for others.

Held with bands of human kindness and cords of love

On this day, I think of and am grateful for all the wonderful women who have loved me, mothered me and enriched my life in so many countless ways. My mother, mother-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins and wonderful and amazing friends, both old and new. 

But today I have a special sense of sadness and depth of love for those for whom this day is especially difficult. 

For those mothers who have lost a child. 

For those children who have lost their mother. 

For those women who want to be mothers. 

For those mothers estranged from their children and those children estranged from their mothers. 

To you, sitting in the church pew this morning, missing your mom who you have lost, I see you. 

To you who couldn’t come to church because you couldn’t take one more person telling you Happy Mothers Day and opening up painful wounds, I see you. 

To you who are so busy making sure today is a great day for your mother, and mother-in-law, and wondering if this day will ever get to be about you, I see you. 

To you who have never known the unconditional love of an earthly mother, I see you. 

To you whose arms ache for a child lost through death or broken relationship, or a child dreamed of but never experienced, I see you. 

To everyone who just wants this day to be over, I see you.   

And most importantly, God sees you. And in her mothering care, she loves you. In your loss and in your pain, she sees you. And she cherishes you. 

Know that you are held close. You are loved. And you are never forgotten. 

You are held with bands of human kindness and cords of love. 

Always.