This Mother’s Day, my wonderful husband surprised me with an amazing breakfast spread and a beautiful bouquet of balloons (my favorite). Not only did I get to enjoy time with him and time with my baby, but—most importantly—I got to enjoy time alone on this day of celebration.

As I was reflecting during my alone-time upon all the blessings God had given me, I realized that—for the first time in my life—Mother’s Day had become a happy day.

Not Always a Picnic

I’m encouraged to see that more and more people seem to realize that Mother’s Day is not a picnic for everybody. In fact, it can be an absolutely miserable day for some people—possibly many people.

Think about it. How many people do you know who have:

• Had a crappy childhood involving a crappy mother OR
• Been unable to marry and, therefore, be a mother OR
• Divorced before being able to be a mother OR
• Been unable to conceive or adopt children to mother OR
• Had motherhood robbed by an abortion, miscarriage, or still-birth OR
• Had a child but no longer has custody; can’t mother OR
• A child without a father; a single mother OR
• Felt like they’re failing as a mother OR
• Strained relationships or no contact with their teenage or adult children—can’t mother OR
• Lost a child to an accident, a crime, a disease, or war—can’t mother OR

That’s gotta be at least 25% of the American population, if not more. How do you think Mother’s Day affects all of those people in their various stages of healing (or not)?

From Mourning…

Having a crappy childhood myself, Mother’s Day was always filled with a sense of obligation to pretend I thought my mother was awesome. I remember walking through the aisles of Hallmark as a preteen thinking, “Why do all the Mother’s Day cards talk about how amazing the mother is? Don’t they have any cards that say, ‘I guess you’re an okay mom, here’s your obligatory card’ or ‘I don’t really like you but it’s Mother’s Day, so I got you this card’?” At the same time, I knew I was supposed to pretend my mom was awesome on Mother’s Day—dysfunctional families have plenty of unspoken rules like this—and I dutifully played my part. But by the time I became an adult, I stopped buying my mom cards or gifts altogether unless I genuinely felt gratitude for something she recently did because I was tired of faking it, tired of lying.

Going to church on Mother’s Day was a double-whammy. Not only did it remind me about how much my mother had hurt me, it reminded me about how painful it was to not be a mother myself. After a while, I stopped going to church on Mother’s Day, too, unless God specifically told me to go.

…To Laughing

But then, I met a wonderful man, and had a beautiful baby of my own just months before turning 40. Admittedly, pregnancy and the postpartum transition period without a loving mother was even more difficult than all of those previous Mother’s Days combined; but this difficult period forced me to grieve the mother I always wished I had but never did. And grieving my past with God led to peace about my past, peace about my past led to being present in my present, and being present led to joy with my new family and hope for the future.

In the place of childhood trauma, the Holy Spirit has been lavishly re-mothering me in my prayer times so that I know how to lavishly mother my child the rest of the time. That’s how awesome God is! He/she has been breaking the cycle of brokenness in my family (my grandmother was no picnic, either) so that I can become the mother I always wanted to have.

I recently ran across the poem below and thought it summed up my experience so well:

What about you? Has Mother’s Day been a day of celebration for you or a day of pain? If the latter, how has God been walking you into healing?