Mother's Day: Just Hear Me Out?

I didn't realize today was going to be Mother's Day until about...Friday.

And I didn't really care. For my sake, I mean. (Because, you know, I'm a mother now. It still blows my mind.)

It isn't that I don't want to honor my mother...my mother-in-law...my grandmothers...and it isn't that I don't want my children to honor me. But why should these things be going on? Do I want my daughter to give me flowers because its Mother's Day and this is what the TV ads and the Hallmark aisle dictate that she's supposed to do? Because I deserve to be pampered for all of the pain she's put me through and the care I've given her? Friends, I don't "deserve" anything. Esther and I both need to be honoring our mothers and grandmothers every day of the year for one reason: because it brings glory to God. Don't you think it is worth noticing that the country spending 20 billion dollars for Mother's Day caters to a rebellious youth culture in which parents are continually disrespected and then stuck in nursing homes at the ends of their lives?

photo source

Okay, that may have sounded a bit harsh. I don't want to be insensitive--my Facebook feed was filled with beautiful posts thanking and praising many, many amazing women. They were beautiful and sincere, and I was blessed to read them. I just think we should do that sort of thing all throughout every year--and continually be holding ourselves accountable to God's expectations for honoring our moms, so that we can guard against cutting ourselves slack and then easing our consciences with a pink carnation on...what day? Oh yes...the Lord's. That brings me to my other objection.

Sunday is the Lord's day. it isn't mine, it isn't my mothers. It isn't my grandmother's. God asks for one day out of every seven. Of course they are all His, which makes these dichotomies a little more difficult to explain, but this day is holy--it is set apart for a specific purpose. If we don't wholeheartedly commit ourselves to rest and be replenished in communion with our Christ on His day, how can we possibly be equipped to give proper honor to our mothers the rest of the week?
Maybe this is more of a struggle for me than for you. I know everyone has different strengths. But it is hard enough for me to put my fears, worries and even just mundane focuses aside every Sunday without extra interference from a secular culture.

So just to make sure I've been perfectly clear...I love my mom. She is my inspiration--if by inspiration I can mean that the things she has sacrificed and accomplished in her life boggle my mind every single day and I have been trying fruitlessly to think of the words to her poem for years. My mother-in-law has given her life selflessly to serve God, she's been through hardships I can't really imagine, and I couldn't have been blessed with a better one, because I don't think a better exists. My grandmothers have shaped my life in ways that I can't limit by describing at the end of a paragraph, even if wide physical distances separate all of them from me now.

I give praise to my Father in heaven for each one of these mothers in my life...and I think Mother's Day does them a great disservice. 

photo source: www.girltalkhome.com