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Posted by on May 11, 2019 | 0 comments

No Assumptions on Mother’s Day

Here is a short prayer written for use in worship on Mother’s Day/Festival of the Christian Home 2019.  It attempts to acknowledge the complexities of Mother’s Day and to help those praying to give it all to God.  It could be used as a pastoral prayer, adapted for us as a litany, etc.


God, on this day in our culture we set aside as “Mother’s Day,” we make no assumptions about the experiences or emotions of the people in this room:

–    some of us here love Mother’s day and celebrate it with great joy;

–    some feel acute sorrow for the Mothers in their lives who are far away or who have died;

–    some of us are not mothers, and that is a source of many differing, even competing, emotions;

–    some mothers here may have experienced the death of a child at any age or stage of development and this day may reopen old wounds;

–    some may have strained or broken relationships with their mothers and they wish this day never happened;

–    and some feel something else entirely on this Mother’s Day that is more complicated than perhaps we have been able or willing to acknowledge.

And so this morning, God, we come to you in prayer with many feelings, needs and words in our hearts and on our lips.  Be near to us, God, today of all days.  Hold us in the palm of your hand.  Gather us in like a hen gathers in her chicks.  Remind us that we are allowed to feel whatever we feel today.  Use this day for our celebration, but also for our healing.  Inspire us to be gentle and to tread lightly with others who may be vulnerable or hurting today.

Nurturing God, life-giving God, God of all and every, we pray to you from the fullness of our human experience, with our spoken prayers, and the prayers we offer you now in silence.

[SILENCE]

Mother God, we pray these things not for power or for might, but humbly, and with the name of Jesus Christ on our lips.  AMEN


© Rev. Kevin Goldenbogen, 2019

Kevin Goldenbogen is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ serving Charlotte Congregational Church in northwestern Vermont. He skis, runs, bakes bread, and tries every day to follow Jesus. He is married to the perfect woman and has two boys who he loves beyond words.

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