Mother’s Day: Rejoicing in the Gift of Motherhood

This is the time of year where practically every advertisement you see is sharing gift ideas for moms. Store windows feature adorable matching mother and daughter outfits for spring. Kids come home from school trying to hide manilla envelops containing their carefully created handprint crafts, and flower shops scramble to keep up with the overwhelming influx of orders.

The origin of Mother’s Day, as it is celebrated today in the United States, dates back to the early 19th century. Before the start of the Civil War, Anne Reeves Jarvis started “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in order to educate woman on how to care for their children. Then, in 1868, she organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day” where mothers met with former Union and Confederate soldiers for the purpose of promoting reconciliation after the war. Two years later, an abolitionist named Julia Ward Howe issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” calling mothers to unite across the word to promote peace.

When Anne Reeves Jarvis passed away in 1905, her daughter, Anna Jarvis, began a movement to honor the sacrifices mothers made for their children by instituting a national day of celebration. In 1908, she gained financial backing from a large department store and organized  a very successful Mother’s Day celebration at a church in West Virginia.

Although Anna never married or had children, she was resolved to have Mother’s Day added to the national calendar—a difficult undertaking in a time when women’s achievements were rarely acknowledged. After four more years of persistently pursuing this goal, her hard work paid off when President Woodrow Wilson officially pronounced the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

However, within just a few years of the national observance of Mother’s Day, Anna became disgusted with how quickly it had become commercialized. She spent nearly all of her fortune in lawsuits against groups and companies that had capitalized on the concept of Mother’s Day for their own profit. She urged people to stop buying flowers, gifts, and cards. She even lobbied against the government, trying to get it removed from the calendar. 

Anna’s dream was to have a day set aside where mothers and families spent personal time together, visiting with one another or attending church together. But she eventually disowned the holiday she had worked so hard to get recognized because of its over-commercialization. However, despite its imperfections, Mother’s Day is still inseparably linked with the heart behind it: a day honoring the sacrifices mothers make for their children.

This year, your Mother’s Day may look quite different than you anticipated. It may be that, in this season of increased social distancing, you won’t be able to eat out at your favorite restaurant or spend the day at the spa. Perhaps the church you attend is still unable to meet for Sunday services and there won’t be a photo booth in the lobby where you can have a family picture taken to capture everyone’s matching outfits. Most schools around the country hadn’t begun sending kids home with their special Mother’s Day crafts before they were required to close for quarantine. But perhaps all of these changes, though difficult for many, will allow Mother’s Day this year to more accurately reflect Anna Jarvis’ heart behind fighting to establish it in the first place, without all of the extra commercialism.

Mother’s Day wasn’t intended to be all about what other people do or say or give to you. It was meant to celebrate the beauty of motherhood and the importance of family. You could choose to spend the entire day longing for someone, anyone, to acknowledge that you are indeed a mother. You could choose to get angry if the day doesn’t go as you hoped it would. You could sullenly reflect on all the reasons why Mother’s Day isn’t a happy celebration for you, making it all about your loss and grief.

But I encourage you to avoid spending the day riding the downward spiral of comparison. Rather than despise the mother whose belly is swollen with child or avoiding those with children in their arms, let us link arms together and honor all mothers. When we detest the gift of motherhood that God has given to others, we cheapen the beauty of the very thing our hearts desire. In Christ, we have been called to carry each other’s joys and sorrows. We can rejoice in the gift of motherhood that God has granted to those around us even as we mourn our own unfulfilled longings and losses. That also means that for those who have have gone on to have new blessings after loss, they can rejoice in the precious gift of their children while also caring for the grieving mothers around them. 

While our stories may look very different from one another, God’s purpose remains the same: He is working out all things for our eternal good and His glory. God calls us all into the privilege of suffering to various degrees and in a multitude of ways, but His loving kindness does not vary from one mother to the next. Some of us are bravely battling infertility on top of the grief of baby loss. Some have other living children to care for, while others do not. Some carry the sorrow of consecutive losses. Still others are with child now, but living in fear of the future, knowing all too well that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Rather than dividing over our differences as mothers, let’s celebrate the unique ways God is writing all of our stories for the glory of His name.

Instead of viewing Mother’s Day as a spotlight shining down on all that you long for or have lost, remember that it is but another day that the Lord has made, and choose to rejoice in it (Psalm 118:24). Mother’s Day will come and go. The flowers will wither, and cards will be misplaced or discarded. But a day spent rejoicing in the Lord is never wasted.

That doesn’t mean you have to allow Mother’s Day to pass by without acknowledging it. Motherhood is a beautiful calling, and one well worth celebrating. Call a mom to pray for and encourage her. Write a letter to a friend who is struggling with infertility. Share the story of your Hope Baby and how they made you a mother. Remember that every time you share about your baby being in the arms of Christ, you have the powerful opportunity to share the gospel. What a gift!

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Ashlee is the Editorial Coordinator for Hope Mommies and author of I AM (Hope Mommies, 2017) and Identity (Hope Mommies, 2018). She and her husband, Jesse, live in Milwaukee with their children—five on earth and two in heaven.

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