Mother's Day and Good Shepherds ...
Dear Ones,
This Sunday, we will hear the traditional 4th Easter lessons in regard to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. This compilation of lessons always includes our beloved Psalm 23 and other gospel references to Jesus as our Shepherd.
This Sunday we will also honor Mother’s Day. For many, Mother’s Day is a joyous celebration in which we delight in remembering our own mothers and in being a mother if we are one. Those happy memories are a blessing and can bring tears of gratitude and mirth and fun to our eyes.
For others, Mother’s Day provides a host of other feelings: grief, loss, remorse, and sadness. Mothers are not perfect and we inherently, by our humanness, cause pain. Sometimes we repent and other times we do not. And so it can be a day of very mixed experiences for each and every one of us.
I want to offer permission to your spirit, if you need it, to experience all the emotions that arise in regard to the experience of motherhood in your life. It’s okay to be sad about a relationship that wasn’t perfect or caused pain. It’s okay, at the exact same time, to give thanks for your mother or the mothering people in your lives. And on top of that, it’s okay if this day hurts because you wanted to be a mother or you didn’t get to be the mother you hoped to be. And if your mother has gone on to eternal life, it’s okay to remember her through the lens of “all of the above”. The day has room for all of us and all our experiences.
It has that room because Jesus gives us room as our Good Shepherd. He reminds us that we are, all of us, custodians of children who belong ultimately to God. That we are blessed with the opportunity to walk with them for a while as they come into their own. He models for us what motherhood can look like by caring for us so fully, by guiding gently, by always bringing us home, by showing us the way of Love. He always comes to find us when our sadness or grief take us off the path we wish we were on.
No matter what this Sunday brings for you, know that you are welcome and that you belong here at CCA. As a family in Christ—a family in the Good Shepherd—we will walk together through the joys and sorrows of every day. You are not alone. We give thanks for you, for your life, and for the many ways that you offer loving shepherding to those around you. Let us continue to bless one another in the fullness of this journey of life.
Peace,
Mother Erika
