This morning woke me with a sting. Celebrating “mom” — with several kids for whom mom still means loss and death and confusion feels out of place.
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Today isn’t my first loaded Mother’s Day. For years, I hid under the covers on that dreaded Sunday while other women were celebrated for what I couldn’t have.
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Many of us know the tinge of ache on this day, shadowing joy — the haunting of what could be, but isn’t … or the sense of failure, that sinking feeling that we’re not living our ideals.
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So perhaps you need what I need today:
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To be seen. Known.
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This morning I needed to feel the eyes of God on me … into me — the Psalm 139 God that searches me (dare I say, all day long) and knows me and is delicate with my quirks, questions and disappointments, deep losses, and unmentionable victories.
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He sees through all the layers of story in this home. He knows the pain of which I can’t speak — the pain this picture doesn’t show, the pain I’ll only write about in my journal. His elation over their heart growth and healing matches His grief over their trauma. Only God can mourn and celebrate to the degree that both warrant. His intimacy with my story makes it possible.
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Friends, there is no one like Him. On this day when you’re alone, or running your hands across the stretch marks of your body and your motherhood, or running your hands across your still-empty womb, or weeping over your wayward child, or squealing, overjoyed that she came home … Jesus sees it all with an unparalleled tenderness.
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He is gentle with your story.
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He is gentle with mine.
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On a day where cards and flowers and sentiment (or the absence of them) barely touch the peaks and the dark valleys … He does.
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This morning I decided to redefine Mother’s Day for myself. Perhaps you need to also. Today is the day to let myself be seen by God … and to ask Him what He sees when He looks at me.