Mother’s Day is an emotional minefield for some women.

I’ve gingerly tip-toed this day for 38 years. I know it’s pain, treachery and discomfort.

But this post isn’t about me. This is for you, female friend. It’s for women I’ve never met. I’m offering you an understanding heart that identifies with your hurt and a path to release that can make you feel better, relieved and peaceful. I’m writing you today from a heart not yet fully healed from the scars of adoption relinquishment, but I desperately want to be. Like you, I’m working it out. Becoming healed.  

Maybe you’re a mom whose felt death’s dagger cut your child or children away. Whatever the means, your loss is personal, permanent, stinging. It could be you’re a birthmother separated from your child through the adoption process.

You could be dealing with the pain of infertility or a single woman longing for marriage and family. Maybe a mother or grandmother separated by geographical distance from those she loves by relational disagreements causing lack of family contact. 

Suppose you’re incarcerated and unable to spend mother’s day with your children. Does the pain of missing them and yearning go away? Perhaps you live with your kids but family dynamics are not where they should be. You anticipate you might not get the love, appreciation, honor or respect you crave?

These are only a few of the reasons women hurt. Mother’s Day seems to make it worse.

Don’t get me wrong: I want mothers to feel honored, lavished with love and receive their heart’s desire: quality time with family, even if it’s a phone conversation. I want every woman alive to feel valued for her role as a nurturer, appreciated for the countless ways she selflessly gives.

Whose Role is it to Honor?

Where should love and honor come from? Is it really the churches or societies role? I think love, honor and respect should originate from her family – from her kids and husband in the home. That’s who she gave birth to and whom she nurtures and serves. Proverbs 31 says they should rise up and call her blessed. That’s who she wants acknowledgement from. I won’t get off topic onto how sometimes churches miss it by trying to fill a role unintended for them.  

Stop stuffing your feelings – you are not a turkey!

I’m putting my emotions out there to say: it is okay to feel what you’re feeling. I was sad today. Really sad, not depressed, just a birth mom missing my biological daughter and grandkids whom I haven’t seen in nine years. Longing to see their faces, talk, laugh together and have relationship. Have some contact so I’d feel validated. Not needing their honor or appreciation, just wanting connection and dreading this whole Mother’s Day fiasco.

Society pressures us to stuff our negative feelings – disappointment, hurt, pain, grief, loneliness, etc. But I stuff my maternal emotions the majority of the year as a coping mechanism to be able to get through 38 years of separation and enable myself to live a functional life. Something triggered my pain and there it was. Again. I knew I needed to stop stuffing and release how I felt. Since I’m a left brained gal who functions from logic and reason more readily than from emotion, I struggle with releasing and understanding how to handle my emotions. I don’t let them rule my decisions or daily life. 

So I called a friend, a wise friend, a gifted listener who happens to hear from God out of a close walk with Him. I knew she was a safe place to pour out my feelings. A non-judgment zone friend who loves well. I’m truly blesssed to have several of this type of women as my close friends. 

My Path to Peace

I shared my heart, cried openly and expressed what was going on inside. It’s important not to get into self-pity or a victim mindset. I’m not either of those. I know who I am in God, that I’m seated in heavenly places with Christ and that Jesus loves and accepts me unconditionally.

My friend helped me see I’m not alone in dreading Mother’s Day. There are other women out there who feel likewise. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, 1st Thessalonians 5:11 says.

Expressing the pain that separation has wrought, I wept tears of longing. A dozen tissues later, I remembered how God keeps all my tears in a bottle. Yours, too. Big beautiful tears that will one day water something good. She reminded me how emotional our Abba is, how Jesus wept over Jerusalem and with Mary when Lazarus died. She reminded me that Jesus commiserates with our longing for it exists in His heart, too. He aches to consummate marriage with His Bride, His people. Jesus has lovingkindness, mercy, comfort and consolation waiting to exchange for our pain. 

Together we prayed to the God of all comfort with our eyes closed. As I visualized myself resting my head on God’s strong, expansive chest, my breathing slowed and tears ceased. I knew Jesus was hearing me and consoling with His love. Then in a vision, I saw His eyes, gazing directly at me, full of love. Liquid love filling me, evaporating pain. Supernatural peace washing me in gentle waves. I breathed deeply of His goodness. 

Letting Go, letting God in

It’s a delicate process, this letting go of ourselves, releasing deep emotional pain to God. Feeling it instead of medicating ourselves to numb it. Feeling and releasing it so we can heal. 

Let’s stumble together to find that place of peace, shall we sisters?

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ, Galatians 6:2 tells us.

If we comfort one another with the comfort we have received, (2 Corinthians 1:4) we will make it to a beautiful place of peace. Like the caterpillar who eats and eats, then stuffs itself into a small, cramped cocoon, the transformation process of becoming a new creature is uncomfortable. It includes pain and takes time.

What a wonderful God we have—he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does he do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us (2 Corinthians 1:4 TLB).

As I become Healed Writer instead of Healing Writer, I can strengthen you through the process, lightening your burden, thus fulfilling God’s Word. Then you can spread it and the ripples continue.

May I pray for you, hurting one?

Faithful Abba, I lift up every hurting woman for whom Mother’s Day brings disappointment.  Jesus, help the hurting pour their pain out to you, and as Supreme Healer make them whole, spirit, soul and body. Give each consolation for their grief, soothe every ache as only You can. Abba, use Your good fathering nature to reassure them of Your listening Presence and gladden each heart by your perfect love. Let them feel understood, validated and appreciated, leaving their time with you, cheered. You bore our sorrows and it is by Your stripes that we are healed. I cancel every assignment of the enemy against their soul and speak emotional healing and wellness over each emotional wound, in Jesus mighty and all powerful name, Amen.

Action Item: After you spend time sharing your feelings with God, can you let me know how you felt? Cool kids comment. I love you, sister. It really is going to get better! 

Categories: Adoption Compassion Emotional Healing Motherhood

Tagged as: emotional courage emotional healing emotional pain emotions godly comfort grief healing loss Mother's Day motherhood peace prayer role of prayer in healing sadness separation from children sorrow

Kathryne

Christian author and inspirational speaker of truth that makes the darkness tremble. Author of two non-fiction books at https://linktr.ee/TattooedKing