Their answers were all over the board. “What do you really think about Mother’s Day?” I had asked. Moms began chiming in.

“I really didn’t think I would be into it, as holidays aren’t really my thing, but motherhood really does feel like a thankless job and I’m all about a day for some appreciation.”

“Honestly it’s another day of feeling like we have to make everyone happy.”

“It may not be a day totally pampered but it is a day filled with love.”

“The first several years of being a mom, mother’s day was stressful and exhausting.”

Myself? Well, this will be my sixth Mother’s Day. I have birthed four babies in that time. I’m a bit tired, friends. In the best of ways… but still tired. Are you there, too? Looking back over Mother’s Days past, I recall moments in church standing to be honored as a mom during service, a rose placed into my hand as I walked out the door. But I think if we’re honest, you and me as we raise young children, these years, including these days marked on a calendar to honor our job, they’re a bit of a blur.

Mother’s Day, it ends up, is often not what we expected. But couldn’t that be said of motherhood itself? We come in with preconceptions, only to be completely unraveled and changed in the deepest of ways by these babies. They are everything we didn’t expect. Motherhood, we find, is not at all where we expected to find it.

We discover it instead where we never anticipated. It is in the murky, uncertain, exhausting, and most trying of moments that we discover ourselves. Those are the places in which we become mothers.

Motherhood is in an answer to the late night cries of a newborn.

It is in our child’s words when they stand up for an outcast.

It is in the good decision that our teenager makes, that we may never know of.

It is found in apologies and do-overs and getting back up again.

It is found in the sway of our body as we rock the fussing baby, our dinner growing cold.

It is in that moment that we hold our tongue.

It is in the sacrifices that make up our days, the ones that most days, Mother’s Day not excluded, appear to show no fruit, no reward. But we know in the deepest parts of us, they are shaping our children. So we keep giving.

Motherhood is made of this hard stuff, and with those raw materials, it becomes the best of stuff. It evolves into legacy. Mothers, after all, are legacy makers.

Most days I find that motherhood looks much different than what I expected, or what I try and force it to look like. Instead it holds its own raw beauty; this inexplicable calling that I find myself stumbling through and with every trip and fall and rising, I see it more clearly. I see myself more clearly.

And so, fellow mamas, as we wake to another Mother’s Day, whether it greets us with breakfast in bed or a family waiting for breakfast to be made, whether you feel appreciated, or, well, not– I believe that we can redeem this day.

This year, let’s make Mother’s Day different.

Let’s make it about us, but in a very different way.

What if Mother’s Day became, in a sense, our New Year? What if it became a day for us to take stock of our motherhood? What if we took time to search our hearts and ask ourselves the questions that shape us, the ones found in those hard places where Motherhood is made?

Am I at peace with my current season of motherhood?

Have I been holding my tongue?

Am I delighting in my children?

Am I smiling and laughing?

What, specifically, is leaving my soul unsettled?

Am I spending intentional time with each of my children?

Am I “smiling at the future”, as Proverbs 31:25 speaks of?

We are not grading ourselves, mamas, we are freeing ourselves. We are discovering peace and joy and delight and goodness in our calling. We are taking a good hard look at where we’re at, glimpsing where we want to be, and asking ourselves what needs to be different to get from here to there.

We are chasing after peace. Because, mamas, we won’t arrive at peace on a whim or a wish. We must chase it down. We need to fight for it. Let’s begin this weekend. Let’s set out this year to discover the deepest kind of joy that motherhood can bring. Let’s plan for peace. Let’s make Mother’s Day different this year.

 

Click here to download your own Peace Plan guide for Mother’s Day.