A Hard and Holy Mother’s Day

Posted on May 07, 2020 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Kathleen Kerr

For a few years now, whenever I’ve chatted with friends who are homeschooling their children, I have been quietly smug. Sure, they had good reasons to keep their kids home. So much time is wasted in a traditional school setting. Gifted children aren’t challenged. Kids are exposed to violence, sexuality, and coarse language at too early an age. I always nodded in a concerned fashion when I heard these arguments, and then I shrugged and said, “My husband and I are teaching our kids to be salt and light for Jesus in our neighborhood school.”

Two months ago, of course, that neighborhood school closed, and I found myself in a position I’d never envisioned: sitting on the couch late at night, laptop on my knees, shuffling browser tabs among homeschooling websites as my husband and I developed a curriculum for our family—and I developed a newfound respect for those who have chosen this route for their families.

Now, two months in, I have slathered shortening on my children’s hands to simulate blubber. I have leapt from the couch in imitation of John Wilkes Booth after the Lincoln assassination, and in doing so I have legit hurt my ankle. I have promised our children we could mummify a chicken. (I keep finding reasons to put this off, though.)

Has homeschooling stretched me beyond my limits? Yes. I’ve exhausted my capacity for patience and creativity. I’ve struggled to find the right balance of work and play. I’ve demanded obedience when I should have offered compassion. But I’ve also had time to just be with my kids. To inhale the smell of sunscreen and sprinkler and cut grass and chocolate chips. To hold a worst knock-knock joke competition. To sing with them in family worship on Sunday mornings.

This lockdown has been hard. And it’s been holy—as hard things so often are.

Mother’s Day, too, can strike us as both hard and holy. There’s so much sweetness here. We’re charmed by the tributes and remembrances on social media, the phone calls with distant loved ones, the cards and flowers winging their way across the country. All of these are testament to God’s gift of motherhood.

But there’s the bitter alongside the sweet—the children who haven’t called today, the arms that have been empty for too long, the grief over mothers and grandmothers long since gone to glory. Maybe you just can’t muster the enthusiasm for a fancy brunch at home with your toddlers, knowing you’ll have to wash the dishes yourself.

These hard, holy times can leave us at the very end of ourselves—stretched beyond any limits we’d imagined. And that’s exactly where God shows himself strong.

Wherever you find yourself this Mother’s Day, whether you’re holding space for grief or celebrating with kids who do their own dishes, may you experience the presence of the Savior. May your heart and mind be renewed in Christ Jesus. And may God send the sweetest gift of all in these hard and holy times: peace.