Please sit down as you are reading the next statement : our social media accounts do not always portray the totality of who we are. Now that you have regained consciousness by the sheer shock of that statement, I would like to explain myself. Today is the day after Mother’s Day. By looking at my social media accounts and the accounts of all those I love and care about, we are about 99% happy, healthy, and highly successful. That’s true, except for the fact that the majority of us are not.
The majority of us have some real, heart-breaking realities. For a lot of us, Mother’s Day is hard. Our relationships with our children or our mothers are not healthy, or there is some old and lingering pain. It is not as perfect as the pictures we post. We don’t snap pictures and share them, expecting tons of “likes” of our heartbreaking moments and our deep pain. Our social media accounts many times are who we would like the world to see. Ladies, we never want the picture of us on Facebook where our hair is bad, face is broken out, or our saddlebags show ( that is what cropping is created for, right?). Lord forbid we get “tagged” in a photo that is unflattering- that will get some cardiac activity in your life trying to get that thing down!
Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate. Without mothers, there would be no people! I personally feel that one of my highest callings and privileges is the gift of motherhood. I was a single, teenage mom at seventeen years old. I stared in wide eyed wonder at this little human being that God entrusted to me with awe, amazement, and wide-eyed wonder. What a privilege and tremendous responsibility- I was a MOM!! Fast forward a few years and I was a woman that spent over five years in fertility clinics, injected with hormones, under going MANY surgeries, and much heartache as I lost child after child to miscarriages and failed attempts at becoming a mother of two. I wept countless tears and grieved deeply at every ultrasound that told me there was no heartbeat anymore. I lost four babies before I had my son. On Mother’s Day, I thank God for the gift of being a mom and thank God that the heartache of that season of life is less intense. I am always mindful that there are women around me walking through these tough times. My heart hurts for you.
Friends, we have ladies among us that are struggling as single moms, grieving moms, hurting moms. We have abandoned moms, lonely moms, mentally and physically ill moms, unsaved moms, abusive moms, and moms that have died. We have ladies that would give it all just to be called “mom”. Ladies, we are all called to be moms in one way or another. For some of us that is the physical act of giving birth. For others, it is through the blessing of adoption or being a spiritual mom to those who have been hurt by an earthly mom.
I love ladies- they are the heart of the ministry I am called to. Today I felt compelled to reach out and love on all of you. Many of us have wounds when it comes to the word “mom”. If you are a woman that has nothing but joy related to that word, please rejoice; we all rejoice with you! For the rest of us, I am thankful that God is the lover of my soul. He loves me where I have failed as a mom as equally as He loves my successes. See, we all have both. If you look at my Facebook wall, I have not posted my weak moments. I didn’t take pictures of the times I have failed and fallen at the feet of Jesus with a repentant heart. Trust me, there are plenty of them.
Happy day after Mother’s Day- I think you are all awesome and you are not alone ( now guess which pic made my Facebook wall 🙂
