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.