A Mother’s Comfort

Today I want to start off by acknowledging the wide continuum of mothering, as noted by Amy Young (a non-mother).

To those who gave birth this year to their first child – we celebrate with you.

To those who lost a child this year – we mourn with you.

To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you.

To those who have warm and close relationships with your children – we celebrate with you.

To those who have disappointment, heartache and distance with your children – we sit with you.

To those who lost their mothers this year – we grieve with you.

To those who lived through driving tests, medical tests and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having you in our midst.

To those who step-parent – we walk with you on these complex paths.

To those who will have emptier nests in the upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you.

And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expected and surprising – we anticipate with you.

This Mother’s Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have some real warriors in our midst. We remember you.

Speaking of remembering moms, the media is awash in lists of “Best TV Moms.”

These lists include the likes of Carol Brady from “The Brady Bunch,” (it helps to have a live-in housekeeper, right?), June Cleaver from “Leave it to Beaver” (my mom never vacuumed while wearing pearls and high heels), and Marge Simpson from “The Simpsons,” who does an amazing job with three kids while dealing with a less than ideal husband.

There are also lists out there of the worst TV moms. It’s populated by mothers such as Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess from “Downton Abbey,” Betty Draper from “Mad Men,” and Peg Bundy from “Married with Children.”

One way to decide which list on which these TV mothers belong – best mom or worst mom – might be to answer two questions: If you were hurting emotionally, to which of these mothers would you go for comfort? To which of these mothers would you not go for comfort?

If you stopped 100 people on the street and asked them to describe God or what God looks like, many would use the word “father.” They may even describe the stereotypical vision of God as an old man with a white beard. Our language in Scripture encourages this outlook by usually referring to God as “He.” But Scripture, in fact, has a number of passages which appeal to God with decidedly feminine imagery.

In Isaiah 66, there’s a striking verse where God, using maternal imagery, speaks to the generation of Israelites who have returned from the Babylonian exile to the ruins of Jerusalem. In verse 13, God says that the God of Israel is like a mother one can turn to: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

The Bible recognizes that in God, the paternal and the maternal are both present.

This is perhaps emphasized in one of the names used for God in the Old Testament, El Shaddai, which first appears in Genesis 17:1, where God tells Abram and Sarai that they are to have a son. English Bibles usually translate El Shaddai as “God Almighty,” but scholars say that’s just a guess at its meaning. The El part of the name is the shortened form of Elohim and it means “God,” but Shaddai is possibly derived from the Hebrew word shad, which is invariably used in Scripture for a woman’s breast, the place where a child is cuddled and nursed. So the name may be a nod to the maternal side of God’s nature.

The imagery in Isaiah 66 communicates especially well: God comforts like a good mother comforts her child. Now, we know that fathers can also provide comfort – and children need the love of a father every bit as much as a mother’s. But we also know that when push comes to shove, when a knee is scraped or a hope dashed, children run to their mother, sometimes holding back tears until they are in those arms.

Having said that, note that in Isaiah 66:13 God was speaking and promising comfort to grown-ups. The hurts of childhood are fleeting, and often a hug and a few tender words are all that’s needed. But the hurts of adulthood – the pain of loss, worry, illness, the realities of the human condition – are another matter. And for those, we might long for comfort and help as effective as that which we found from our mothers in our early years.

This is why all mothers know that comforting a child doesn’t end when they go off to college or even when they marry and have children of their own.

But how exactly does God comfort us? For one, God comforts us through the presence and care of other Christians. One definition of comfort is “to stand alongside to lend support and encouragement when the situation cannot be changed.” This is something most of us can do for others. And such “standing alongside” often helps those dealing with that which cannot be changed to cope with the situation as it is.

Sometimes God comforts us more directly. The psalmist said, “When my anxieties multiply, your comforting calms me down” (94:19, CEB). Interestingly, that verse is from Psalm 94, which bemoans the injustice of life and the arrogance of evildoers who seem to get away with their deeds. But the psalmist finds comfort in the confidence that God reigns and will deal with the inequities and miscreants in God’s own time.

How God delivers comfort will vary, but it sometimes comes while we are in prayer. It is sometimes transmitted through a verse or passage that jumps out at us while reading the Bible. Or it might come over us as inner assurance in the midst of grief or trouble.

Many of us can remember our mother’s comfort. On this day, some of us still have mothers to whom we can send a card or bouquet of flowers. We are grateful for our mothers. We are thankful for their enduring and unconditional love. We are glad that when we were children we had mothers to whom we could run for comfort.

But there are some who did not have such a mother, who lost a mother while young in life or whose experience does not align with God’s description of a mother who comforts a child. This is something you would not wish on any child. But even the absence of such a comforting presence reinforces in a way the reality of it and of its power.

Intuitively, whatever our experience, we understand the concept of a mother’s comfort.

God uses this metaphor to help us understand how God relates to us.

And so on Mother’s Day, we can be thankful for our earthly mothers, and we are grateful to God for the comfort offered us today – whether we feel a sense of loss or if our hearts are swelling with love.

God’s word to us is crystal clear. God says, “I will comfort you.” Period.

So allow God to encircle you with his love and mercy.  And feel the comforting presence of the Almighty.