This One’s for the Moms
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms out there and God bless you all! Today’s post is mainly for the moms referred to as “single moms” out there but don’t hit the back button just yet! Every mom can get encouragement from this so read on and pass it on. :)
A few days ago I was mulling over the label “single mom” and the longer I contemplated the more I realized deep in my heart that single + mom shouldn’t be in the same sentence. They’re incompatible. In fact I began to despise the phrase and in my despising I began to pour out my despair to God;
“You know God; I despise the label ‘single mom’. People don’t say ‘married moms’ so why the distinction? It just makes me feel like I am exiled to no man’s land. I am neither a single piece nor part of a whole. I feel like a ripped half of something that was meant to be whole and therefore I no longer hold value. I know that isn’t truth but it sure feels that way when I hear those words added together in on dreaded label; single + mom = Single mom.
He heard the heart of my complaint that day and gave me a hug, and true to Himself began to encourage my heart with truths that I hope will encourage you too.
Maybe you’re like me and when you hear single mom you cringe. It’s an awful label right? Not to mention the words describe totally opposite things. Single means solitary. Mother means “where two or more are gathered” and having solitary time only happens (maybe) in sleep (if you get any) or the shower (if you get one of those either).
Mother’s were never meant to be single. They are created to be a much needed piece that completes a family and makes it a whole. A wife without a husband is a widower or divorcee so a mother without a father is like one oxen bridled up in a double yoke designed for two and pulled by one.
It’s not supposed to be that way and that is why God is gracious because He truly understands how hard it is to live in the dissonance of the Eden He put in our very DNA and the sin that mars the should be and could be.
Maybe you are single because your husband died
Maybe you are single because you have slept around and don’t know who the Dad is
Maybe you are single because the man who said he would love you forever scrammed at the first sign of pregnancy or
Maybe you are single like me because you escaped from the hands of a narcissist.
Whatever the circumstances, nothing modifies you are, and forever will be, a mom. Pure and simple.
And that void you feel? That’s normal. Now I’m not saying you are emotionally incomplete or without a husband you aren’t whole (because those are lies, lies and more lies to be talked over another day!). I’m talking about feeling dissonance between something that should be and isn’t, is normal. God made marriage and family to be a complete body so when a limb is taken (for good or bad reasons) you notice the absence.
You adjust but it doesn’t make you less of a person or less of a mom. You are still a mom whose mission of motherhood doesn’t change just because circumstances do.
Embrace your role as mother! It is a part of you no matter what.
Now for all you who are scrolling to the comment section to type out as fast as you can all the exceptions to the rule, like Amy Carmichael or perhaps even your own mom that ended up pulling the whole weight of parenthood, hear me out.
If you assume I’m saying women who are mom’s and don’t have husbands (for whatever reason that might be), need to go get married or are not whole then you have missed my heart. As a case in point, I am currently a mother without a husband yet I am whole, happy, healthy, and fulfilled. Would I like to be married someday? Yes. Do I want a healthy, safe, whole father for my children? Absolutely!! Will I compromise their safety or mine by blindly going around searching high and low for what only God can bring? No.
Nothing negates or absolves God created wives and husbands to equally live out roles of mother and father when children come into the picture. That was, and still is, God’s original intent. Fallen human choices don’t amend God’s beautifully blessed design even when there are exceptions because of human error.
If I could sum up this entire post in one sentence it would be this, if you have children, you are a mother; not a single mom, divorced mom or married mom but simply a mother and you should be celebrated as such. :)
Happy Mother’s Day!!!!
Blessings,
Erin