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.