The origins of this prayer is from a blogger I stumbled across a while ago. I have since modified and added to this prayer over the years as I have discovered motherly vocations that I have omitted. If you have ideas for additions and/or modifications to this prayer, please let me know. This continues to be a work in progress, but here it is for 2019…

This Mother’s Day, we give thanks for loving, wonderful mothers, who have given their children so many invaluable gifts. We give thanks for new mothers, welcoming new life into the world. We give thanks for those who choose their children, responding to a unique calling; adoptive and foster parents, who model the adoptive love of God. We give thanks for aunts and godmothers and neighbors, who share maternal love with so many children; and for far too often overlooked stepmothers. We give thanks for those who choose to remain without biological children, sharing love with the world in many ways.

Together we pray for the many mothers who have had to bear the unimaginable burden of burying a child, and those who have born the silent grief of stillbirth or miscarriage. For those who have had hope seemingly ripped away from them through a failed adoption. We pray for those who struggle with infertility, whose desire for a child is met with frustration. We pray for the mothers of children with special needs and chronic illness, who know anxiety and exhaustion better than most. We pray for those who were given abuse and heartbreak by the ones called to love them. We pray for mothers who have made the difficult and loving decision to entrust a child to adoptive parents. We remember mothers who parent alone for a variety of reasons, who deal with challenges that many can not understand but do so with grace and love.

We remember all women, who function in roles, names and not named, even though they may not have children as the world defines it, yet they are mothers to many by showing a motherly love, that is tender, compassionate, caring in a way that only a mother can show. Lord, we thank you for the gift of mothers, of all kinds.