Grace on this Mother’s Day

Every year when Mother’s Day rolls around, I feel a little guilty. I haven’t spent Mother’s Day with my mom since 1995. That’s what moving 1,400 miles away will get you: 25 years (and counting) of long-distance mama-love.

I wish I could say that I’ve been good about sending cards, but that would be fibbing. Some years I remember. Usually I don’t. I always try to call on Mother’s Day, but there are years I’ve forgotten that, too.

My failure as a Mother’s Day correspondent isn’t because I don’t love my mom or want to celebrate her. I do love her, dearly, and let her know that whenever we talk. But I think my leaving home two days after high school graduation, moving back to the United States from Germany, and having my parents literally on the other side of the world gave me a level of independence that sometimes, I admit, makes me forgetful.

But now, in this era of Stay at Home to Flatten the Curve, I have, quite enjoyably, resumed sending greeting cards. Several weeks ago, my daughters and I wrote cards to my sisters, my nieces, and my parents, for no particular reason other than to give them a nice surprise in this COVID-19 crisis. Then I sent cards to my aunts.

And I have a stack of cards ready to mail for Mother’s Day to several women in my life who have been “mothers” to me and/or my husband over the years. Women who deserve Mother’s Day recognition. Wise, older, honest, loving, godly women, without whom my husband and I would not be the same. I cannot imagine our lives without these women. Especially because my husband’s mom was not a good mom. Three women, in particular, stepped into that void and loved him as a mama should.

I do have a Mother’s Day card ready to mail to my mother-in-law, too. Please do not think that I am a wonderful person to give her a card, despite the difficulties of her history. I am not sending it because I am wonderful. I am sending it because I know that I should. I am sending it to honor that fact that she gave birth to my husband and is, therefore, his mother. He will sign it, as will all of us, and we will send it with good will, not out of obligation but from, I suppose, grace.

Yes, grace, without which each one of us, as mothers, would be lost. We fail so often in our mothering. We forget. We compare. We give in. We give out. We gloss over small joys to weigh in on neglected duties. I can’t even tell you how often I do that. I can think of two times—one happened as I was writing this—in the past week when, quarantined together as we are, I have been impatient for no good reason with Lucy, age 13. Oh, how badly I, too, need grace.

We are imperfect mothers, as were our mothers and theirs before them. But God loves us anyway. Thankfully, He invites us to ...approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16 NIV®).

This coronavirus situation is a time of need. We all need mercy and grace from God and from others. Reach out to your mamas. Now. Even the ones who are hard to love. Ask Him in confidence and faith to help you do this.

I truly believe that this Mother’s Day could be the best ever if we approach it with eyes of grace.

Gretchen O’Donnell is an island girl living on the prairies of southwestern Minnesota, with her husband, two youngest children, and two argumentative cats. Her college-aged son is home now, too, and together they are learning that parenting must be flexible as he, Mr. Social, Mr. Independent, is living in social isolation back at home. Truly, grace is required. Gretchen does freelance writing for her local newspaper and has a weekly faith-based newspaper column, “The Disheveled Theologian.” She loves telling stories of her ordinary life to help people see the theological truths in their own everyday lives.