For Moms

My Seraphina Vine from my brother! Thanks, A.J

It’s May, and we have so many things to celebrate!

Graduating seniors from high school and college.

Memorial Day, to remember and honor our fallen military heroes.

Also, the month of May celebrates the nation of Israel. May 14, 2025, marks their 77th year of being back in the land God promised in an everlasting covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.[1]

However, May’s most notable celebration is Mother’s Day. If I were speaking to an audience right now, I’d ask all the Moms to stand, and we would celebrate you in style because you so deserve it.

Being a mom myself and now a grandmother, I know it isn’t easy. Little ones take so much care, and we’re exhausted. As the years fly by, little ones grow and take on a mind of their own. And even though this was our goal all along, it’s also where the emotional pain starts.

Soon, our children flourish into adulthood and leave home. As they do, most understand and respect the sacrifices their parents made in raising them, but not all. Did we do things perfectly? No. No one does since sin is in the world.

Still, their years of childhood should be like water under a bridge. All the back-and-forth struggles flowing downstream, never to pass our way again. Good memories are folded neatly on a shelf in the storehouse of their mind, eager to be recalled. But the others should have been duct-taped and shoved into a tiny alcove to never again see the light of day.

Normally, when our children, our gifts from the LORD, become dads and moms themselves, they appreciate their upbringing and respect and honor father and mother.[2] But many times, this isn’t the case. Some adult children haven’t tucked away past hurts. Instead of honor, we get blamed for all the ills in their lives, and they turn on us. We did our best and parented the way we knew. So, what causes one child to love you and the other to treat you with disdain?

I don’t have an answer, but God, who knows the end from the beginning, does. He loves us and our children more than we ever could. And while believers may have had extra parenting help from the Holy Spirit, and we raised our children in the love and admonition of the LORD, that didn’t guarantee whole and loving families.

It’s so puzzling. We were the ones who took seriously the words God spoke to us and not our children. They were too young to understand, and their minds could not yet take in how He commanded us to lay up His words in our hearts and souls and bind them as a sign on our hands, as frontlets between our eyes. We, like Israel, were to do this so we would never forget why we do what we do and why we would teach God’s word to our children as we sat in our house, walked by the way, when we lay down, and when we rose up. The only thing we probably didn’t do was write His Word on the doorposts of our house and on our gates.[3] But we had the Word of God hanging somewhere on our walls, on refrigerator magnets, or notecards tacked to our mirror. In this, we honored the LORD and helped our children.

As parents, our objective was to raise our children to be successful in life, good citizens, and to know Jesus personally. Some developed all three, and some only one or two because, unfortunately, they turned to their own desires and went their own way.

So, to our knees, we go.

Heavenly Father, I lift Moms to You. Some were joyful on Mother’s Day, and some had wounded hearts. I ask, O LORD, for You to wrap us in the warm blanket of Your peace. Help us to see Your hand at work in all our children’s lives. LORD God, we lay them at Your feet and ask for You to protect them. Remove them from the clutches of the evil one, who is out to destroy families. Present to each of our children, whether believers or not, eyes to see Jesus high and lifted up. As we give You glory, O LORD, help our children to fall to their knees and do the same. Holy God, hold them tight and provide Your wisdom for life and parenting. Search for and find our lost lambs, and bring them back, first to You and then to us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

[1] Genesis 12:1-7; I Chronicles 16:14-18; Ezekiel 37; Isaiah 66:8

[2] Exodus 20:12

[3] Deuteronomy 11:1-3,18-21