A Pastoral Prayer for Mother's Day

Loving God and Parent of All,

We are grateful today to gather as children birthed in your image, blessed offspring of your creation. As a mother hen gathers her brood under her wing, we join today, to hear your teachings and experience your love.

We give you thanks for empowering us to have a child-like faith. Teach us to have compassion in our human relationships, to forgive those who hurt us, to share with all of your children, and to play with imagination and courage.

We thank you indeed for the women among us and around us, in whom you have gifted the privilege and the challenge of being mothers and mother figures. Especially we thank you this day:

• For all mothers, everywhere - Strengthen them in the ways that they raise their children, grant them wisdom for the lessons that they teach, discernment in the ways that they discipline, and may others grant them the thanks and honor they deserve.

• We thank you for grandmothers, sisters, aunts, teachers, Sunday school teachers, adult mentors, big sisters, and anyone, everywhere, who plays a motherly role in the life of another boy, girl, or adult. Grant them to ability to model the example of Christ for all within their influence, that they might share the love that you have so freely shown to all of us.

We pause to remember those for whom Mother’s Day is a source of discomfort, even perhaps anxiety and pain:

• For some, this day brings to mind melancholy remembrance of their own mothers who have died. There may even be those for whom this is the first Mother’s Day since their mother's passing. To these people, grant your peace and comfort, and may they give thanks for their mother’s lasting influence.

• There may be those for whom Mother’s Day is a painful reminder of their own singleness, or their own inability to have biological children. Remind each of these that such women have always had a special place in your concern, especially throughout the history of the Bible. Give them your special care and love, and grant them your assurance that they are not alone; neither are they without ability to make a lasting impact on the world.

• And to those for whom their experience with and memory of their own mothers has brought enduring pain, remorse, and guilt, grant the power of healing and forgiveness. Remind us of the wrongs we have done to each other, and the power we have, in your name, to bridge even the deepest divides.

For all these things, we give you thanks, O God who is a loving father and mother to us all. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,

Amen.