Mother's Day Prayer

Posted on February 21, 2023  •  4 minutes  • 688 words

Foreword

I wrote this pastoral prayer for a mother’s day service when I was a working pastor. Like pretty much anything I ever wrote that was specifically about women or mothers, I got a lot of feedback about it. Several people in the church have remarked to me (even years later) that this prayer specifically made them feel seen, heard, or loved. I have added a little to it and edited it because it was originally meant for worship service purposes, but it mostly remains the same.

Content Warning: I tried to address all the different experiences we can have as mothers and children rather than just focus on the “mother as feminine ideal” that gets promoted a lot, especially around Mother’s Day. This prayer mentions child abuse, strained child/parent relationships, child death, miscarriage, and infertility.

Let us pray

Mother God, who created us, sustains us, and loves us no matter what, we greet you this morning. We see your grace and power in our beautiful world, in the majestic mountains, in the blossoms on the trees, in the flowers bursting forth from the earth. God, we praise you for your loving spirit and your creative hand that we see at work all around us.

On this Mother’s Day, God, we pray for all your children. We pray for the mothers who raised us and loved us, who taught us lessons that live with us, and showed us how to be your people. We are thankful for their love and their example.

God we pray also this morning for those who have a difficult relationship with their mothers, for those who feel strain and stress in that relationship. We ask that they will find peace and perhaps, if it is time and everyone is ready, reconciliation.

God, we pray especially for those whose mothers failed them, whose mothers were a source of fear instead of safety, pain instead of love, that they will feel you holding them and loving them on this day. And God, we pray for mothers.

We pray for those who are in the trenches of long days and longer nights, of full schedules, tantrums, and picky eaters.

Those who are in the trenches of rebellion, confusion, and growth, whose children are pulling away from them towards independence.

Those mothers who are searching for ways to support, uphold, and encourage their children as they find their way in adulthood.

We pray for those who step in and act as mothers to us and to others - who love us and teach us, and influence us for the better.

God, we ask for your comfort for those mothers who grieve. We pray for mothers who anticipated watching their children grow and change, who looked forward to the day their children would go out into the world, and perhaps one day have children of their own, only to have to say good-bye to them too early. And for those who felt the soul-deep love and attachment to an unborn child, who dreamed of seeing their face, holding them in their arms, and watching them take their first breath, and yet had to surrender them to you before they were born.

Lord, we ask your peace for those who have longed to be mothers, but found it was not to be.

Be with the mothers God. Let them know you are with them every moment, in every triumph, every heartbreak large and small, fill them with your Spirit that your love might shine through them.

God, you gave us not a spirit of slavery and fear, but a spirit of adoption, and no matter what this particular day means to us, we know that you are the only perfect mother - who loves us unconditionally and without fail. Who adopted us, chose us, labors for us, breathes life into us, reaches out to us, and waits for us no matter how far we stray. We are in awe of you.

Today we, your beloved children, contemplate your sacrifice. We stand in wonder of your generosity, that you would give us your child to show us your love.

Amen.