What Is the Point of Mother's Day, Anyway?

My niece and nephew about 14 years ago

I haven’t liked Mother’s Day for a long time.  It’s just another one of those “Hallmark holidays.”  Every year I’ve heard that being a mother is the “highest calling on Earth.”   I always think, if that’s the highest calling on Earth, then why am I not good enough?  (Seriously, that’s a really tough idea to deal with.)  

I’ll admit, unlike the majority of my female counterparts, I did not grow up wishing to get married and have children.  I wasn’t against it; it just wasn’t my goal in life.  I wanted an education and a career.  I got both of those.  I did not get marriage and motherhood.

I never cared until people started asking questions such as, “Why didn’t you ever have any children?  Why didn’t you ever get married?”  (Like I’m dead now or something.)  One boy at school on Friday told me I should join eHarmony so that I can meet someone and have kids.  I actually laughed pretty hard at that.

I’ve really dreaded Mother’s Day the past three years because I no longer have a mom, and I’m not a mom.  So what’s the point?

But what I have come to realize is that God has saved me to be a mother to many in need.  I have been a mom to nieces and nephews at times.  I have been a mom to many students.  And I am a mom to very poor children in the Compassion program.  Yes, all of the aforementioned have their own mothers, but sometimes they need another, and I’m always there.  Always.  If I had my own children, I wouldn’t be able to be “there” for the others.

I know now that God has saved me—at least to this point in my life—to care for those children who are not my own, but who are in need.  So I am no less of a woman than any other just because I have not given birth to or adopted my own child.  I have given my heart.  Freely.

On Mother’s Day, I won’t get recognition for being a mom.  I won’t get cards or flowers or any other gifts.  No one will take me out for a Mother’s Day dinner.  I won’t hear a human voice thanking me for being the mother of his children.  I’ll probably be alone all day. 

But I will hear God’s voice thanking me for taking care of His children, those who were lonely or poor or otherwise needy.  And that is a high calling.  

A very High Calling indeed.