I was looking back over some past services to see if I could adapt one I did four years ago for a visiting preach I am doing on Mothering Sunday. Alas it won't readily translate (which is a shame cos it was a good one!) but I liked this prayer that I wrote and which may be of use to someone else.
God who is love, how can we express our love for you?
You love us even before we are born, as a tiny embryo hidden away in our mother’s womb.
You love us as we are born, eyes squinting in the light, lungs filling with air, and a midwife’s hands holding us securely.
You love us when we are toddlers, waddling clumsily, chubby fists clinging to a sister’s hand, and as we place a sloppy kiss on a brother’s cheek.
You love us when we are children, playing for hours with friends, making dens, dressing up or going on secret expeditions, discovering the joy of being alive.
You love us when we are teens, bodies rapidly changing and ideas whirling around our minds, trying to answer the question “who am I?”
You love us when we are adults, juggling work and play, forming relationships, shaping our own future.
You love us when we are parents, striving to nurture our own children.
You love us when we are childless, sharing the bittersweet searching, the freedom or the pain.
You love us when we are elderly, grandparents or not, feeling with us the advance of years, the contentedness to be, the release from the need to achieve.
You love us as life ends. As lungs still and eyes close for the last time, you are there.
God who is love, who loves us through the whole of life, we praise you for the wonder of that love.
Amen.
Comments
Like it. Would nick it if I were leading worship. But I'm not. Thanks anyway.
Thanks, Catriona, for getting my brain cells going again.
Please could I use this?
I may have said before I never know quite what to do on Mothering Sunday or what theology I'm putting into practice. The simple assumptions from my own childhood wrapped up in the little posy of flowers for mums, don't seem quite so straightforward any more - even down to who do you give flowers to... or do you at all?
I like this because it names key aspects of motherly love and attention and locates them firmly in the divine character. In doing this it takes the focus off one particular group without robbing them of their particularity.
I still won't know what to do about the flowers...
Hi Andy - be my guest.
The last time we did flowers (4 years ago!) we gave everyone a 'button hole' as they arrived which seemed to go down well. Since then we haven't actually marked this day - usually it has conveniently coincided with something else or we genuinely forgot. Where I'm visiting this year they still give 'flowers to the ladies' - which clearly rules me out as a devious Baptist minister type!
At KMFC we are having a collection of baby stuff for one of ourcongregation who takes aid to a maternity unit in morocco - so we are asking people to bring things for less fortunate mothers
Hi Catriona,
Lovely poem/prayer! Can I print it in our Mothering Sunday newsletter? I will of course credit it to you but please don't expect a royalty payment as our roof is now leaking and we have no spare funds!
Regards,
Richard Malin
Radford Semele Baptist Church
Hi Richard - good to hear from you; hope all is well with RSBC.
Feel free to use it. Alas I don't have any (effective) prayers for a leaking roof, sorry!
Dear Lord,
Please help us to find enough buckets!
That prayer worked for us on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago (though it did take the best part of a month to dry the carpet out afterwards!)