Before Mother's Day

We can't let this week go by without taking some time to stop and thank God for our mothers. BUT before we do, I think it would be good to take a moment to pause and remember some of the ladies who may be reading this post, and are definitely sitting in our church's pews. Mother's Day is a very difficult holiday for many, many women.

There are those women among us, including our dear Jeanne, who have lost their mothers during the course of the last year. This Sunday will bring up many memories and great range of emotions.

Then there are so many wonderful, Christian, young women, who like Hannah, long for a child and have found God's answer to their prayers to be "not at this time." In my limited circles alone, I know 6 or 7 couples who would give anything to be parents. Many of them are in the process of adoption, and God still says, "wait."

Along the same vein, there are more couples than we may know that have suffered miscarriages. They get their hopes up, begin planning, begin dreaming and then are left with only questions. Only last week, a dear friend of mine suffered such a loss.

This brought to mine another dear friend who lost her pre-teen daughter last summer. She is facing her first Mother's Day in thirteen years without her little girl. Being a mother of a little girl myself, I cannot begin to identify with her loss. I know that there are others like her across our land.

For too many years, in too many churches, these women are overlooked. Let me encourage you to reach out to these dear, hurting women this week. Encourage your husband to be sensitive to these ladies' presence in their congregations this Sunday. Please take the opportunity to remind those in your circles of influence to be sympathetic to those hurting souls beside them in the pews.

Do you have any ideas on how to best minister to these women? Please share . . .