Just Thinking About Mothers (and all women...)

This is a big day for flowers and brunches. Mother’s Day can be also a very painful day for those who have been thwarted for one reason or another, in being able to become mothers…for those whose mothers are no longer here on this earth…for those whose mothers caused pain in their lives…. It can be a day fraught with difficult emotions…and it can be a simple day of celebration and gratitude and joy. And of course it can be all of the above in one way or another, mixed up and interwoven, our human condition consistently both/and in so many directions. This post feels a bit more personal than usual even…and I’m glad to give a glimpse into my mother world here. It’s important to me to be known and to know people…and so I want my writing to be about authenticity and community, not just me saying what I think all the time!

I’ll visit my grandmother’s grave this week as my travels take me through Ohio. She was an amazing woman who deeply impacted my life. I thank God for her presence and love and care for me growing up and well into adulthood. Margarita Marroquin left beautiful Guatemala as a young bride with a young daughter and came to Ohio with her handsome American husband, Roland Dolder, in 1941. She didn’t speak much English and her life changed dramatically in every possible way when she made that choice…to marry him and to come here. She was strong and resilient, independent and fun. I felt safe in her care…and she made the most amazing blackberry pies. We called her Skippy as my grandfather affectionately named her…and there’s really no way to honor her enough this Mother’s Day. She was glue for our family for many, many years….

It’s funny how smells play such a big part in our memories. I can vividly remember coming home from a long day of adventure with my grandfather. He would take me to the racetrack to watch the horses run. I loved every minute. We would get home late and my grandmother would help me “wash that racetrack off” with ivory soap…hands and face, and then tuck me into bed under heavy blankets. I can still smell the soap and feel the blankets around me sitting here 50+ years later. She steadied me then and her memory steadies me now…the mother of my mother.

And Diana Rosary has lived a life of family first all of these years too. She has landed in our backyard now and we get to tend our land and share simple joys, a beer on the swing after mowing and baby birds and lots of dogs and the good gift of flowers flourishing all around us. I’m deeply grateful for this time after living in different places for so many years. She is a treasure, and “Rara” of many grandchildren and great grandchildren and children who grew up under her watchful elementary office eye for many years in Sacramento. She has a huge heart. It’s fun to see my children feeling about their grandmother as I feel about mine.

I am also really thankful for my own adventure as a mother…these three children who are grown are just amazing. I don’t know why I get to be their mother, but I am grateful to God. This is one of my favorite pictures of them…camping in Mexico and enjoying each other. It’s just the best. They are such unique and beautiful people. And what a crazy thing it is to be pregnant, give birth, hold them as tiny people…doing everything for them and watching their personalities unfold all the way into independent adulthood. They are part of me and yet completely their own people. I think being a mother means your heart is walking around outside of your body and VERY vulnerable. I want them with me all the time, and I want them flying into their lives too. There is so much potential to be sad and miss them…and there is so much power in their love and care for me in my life whether we are together or apart. I love being their mom.

Some of us will never be mothers in the birthing children kind of way. I know there are longing hearts and deep sad places there. I would want to ease your grief if I could…and will hold this space to be sad with you. Life is full of disappointments and, even so, we can do this together. We can make it through and keep loving and caring and filling the world with empathy and kindness. I can think of women who have “raised” young girls to women in a million ways and yet they have no children “of their own.” I see them as mothers. I have women in my life who have been full on mothers to me and they are not in my family. They have steadied me, taught me, pushed me and inspired me, and been healing presence in my life. I am so grateful. I want to say all women are mothers, one way or another. There is something about the power of a woman to touch a life that is completely different from a father or man. We need women in our world—whole, giving, loving, women. Valued truly, with gratitude and honor, every day of the year.

So often there is a sense of “less than” attached to being women. I’ve felt it as an athlete, as a woman in Christian spaces, as a female leader in traditionally male dominated roles, professionally. It’s an odd thing to have the power to push humans out of one’s body, to give healing hugs, to know how to nurture and care for people, to be strong enough to run marathons and hit three pointers, and to still be considered less than. It’s complicated and frustrating, the reality of how women are diminished and not valued and not protected. Used, abused, deemed either too much or not enough…it can be an exhausting reality that pops up over and over again.

I spent yesterday with an amazing group of women…such a gift. It was a one day spring retreat with Refuge for Strength. There was honest sharing and careful listening and real connection all day long…some of us mothers and some of us not, at least not in the having given birth way of being mothers, yet all strong women and all seeking to go deeper with God. It’s refreshing to spend a day with women who are authentic and growing and longing to be more fully who God created them to be. Cohorts will form in the fall if you are a woman who would like to explore growing and healing…. One thing most Refuge for Strength women hold in common is having been hurt or limited in some way by some form of abuse in the church or from church leadership…as a woman of faith…or by various forms of racism and sexism…or perhaps even all of the above. Our stories can be and usually are complicated, and sharing them more fully in community like this has been a beautiful and healing time for us.

One part of the day involved listening for an area of focus in our lives, a place to grow in some way, and then choosing an image that struck a chord with us and then listening for what God would want to say about all of that. Here’s the image I chose:

I’ll be staring at this for awhile. It certainly captures a lot of things I’m feeling and experiencing right now. It is a season of work…and planting…and growing myself even still, as a mother, a daughter and as a woman. I’m grateful for those walking this path with me…some a bit further along and some younger ones finding their ways.

Happy Mother’s Day to you…in the ways you mother others, and in the ways you are daughtering…I pray today is a day full of love, healing, joy and hope. And for all the men out there…thank you for finding ways to make the women in your life know they are loved and valued for all of who they are.

Thank You God for mothers, and for the mother heart of God. We are made in Your image after all—the deeply nurturing, creating, birthing God who cleans us up and tucks us in to rest each night and wakes us up each morning, feeding us breakfast and helping us know how to do our days. Thank You for loving us Mother God…we need all of who You are, I need all of who You are, too.