Happy Mother’s Day! The following is my annual Mother’s Day prayer that I have been tweaking for over 15 years. Let us pray…

This Mother’s Day, we give thanks for loving, wonderful mothers, who have given their children so many invaluable gifts. We give thanks for and remember expectant mothers who anxiously wait for their child to be born. We give thanks for new mothers, bless them with wisdom and guide them as they raise their child. We give thanks for those who lovingly and graciously receive children through adoption and foster care, who model the adoptive love of God and show that family is beyond DNA passage. 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 pray for grandmothers who show a special love with grandchildren that forms connections that run deep. We give thanks for those who choose to remain without biological children, but who share motherly 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. We remember those who have seemingly had hope ripped 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 women who have made the decision to abort a child and continue live with that painful decision. Bring healing and reconciliation through Jesus. We pray for the mothers of children with special needs, chronic illness, or various health challenges, those 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 cannot understand but do so with grace and love.

We remember all women, who function in motherly roles 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. In Jesus name, Amen.