Today I have a germ of an idea in my brain for a reflection or poem or somesuch around the idea of motherhood but all attempts to catch it and write it down are failing.  So, instead here is a kind of a list of people to be remembered today and prayer for... not necessarily in any order, except the one in which they popped into my brain.

I am thinking of you,

Mothers that are,

Mothers that were,

Mothers that will be,

Mothers that will never be

Mothers that never were

Mothers that are not yet...

Thinking of you and praying, somehow, for you...

The new mother exhausted from labour whose newborn will not suckle

The elderly mother whose age-eroded mind can no longer recognise her own child

The frazzled mother whose children seem out of control

The mother who now nurses her own mother

The mother who longs to linger but is lured by death to eternity

The unexpected mother whose swelling belly bears witness to unplanned activity

The shamed mother, whose rapist's feature stare at her from infancy's innocence

The step mother trying, perhaps too hard, to get it right

The adoptive mother, finally holding the longed for child

The mother who cannot be mother, life-saving drugs having destroyed her fertility

The longs-to-be mother whose body has let her down yet again

The mother who cares for her children's children, her child having died

The mother who sits alone, rejected, neglected, unloved

The mother who clings to bitterness and refuses to ne reconciled

The mother who feels she has failed

The mother who dances for joy at her children's achievements

The mother who lets go the apron strings, and delights to see her children grown

The mother who sacrificed her career to fulfil her calling as mother

The mother who...

The mothers that were

The mothers that are

The mothers that will be

The mothers that weren't

The mothers that aren't

The mothers that never will be

On this Mothering Sunday,

May the mother-love of God,

In whom we are each conceived,

Surround and fill you,

Wherever,

Whoever,

Whatever you may be. 

Amen.