The God who sees you
Happy Mother’s Day to the Mums, Grandmums and women in our lives who support us in this way! Mums, spiritual Mums and women who invest in us are invaluable. They often carry a lot, are wise and kind and generous, and so we honour you today.
However, I am aware that ‘happy’ isn’t always a word that describes this day.
When I was younger, we would buy my Mum flowers on Mother’s Day and make her breakfast in bed, and all the women in church would get a flower. It was a day that I took for granted, until I lost my Mum.
I never knew that just one day could become so painful. The marketing emails, the cards and banners in shops exclaiming ‘Mother’s Day,’ people casually sharing about what they’d buy for their Mum and how they’d go and see her, became like daggers to my heart. They were a reminder that I would never celebrate another Mother’s Day in the same way. I couldn’t bear to listen to conversations about Mother’s Day and just the mention of it made me want to cry. I wanted to shout at everyone, ‘but I don’t have my Mum anymore!’
There are many reasons why Mother’s Day may be difficult for people today. Perhaps this resonates with you.
As we approach Mother’s Day this year, I want to remind you that God is the God who sees you. In Genesis 16:13, we see a Mum who is struggling. She runs away into the desert and in this place of hopelessness encounters the God who sees her. El Roi, the Hebrew name which describes God, reveals God as the one who ‘sees, looks or gazes.’
If you have lost your Mum, if you have lost your child, if you are longing to be a Mum, if you have a broken relationship with your Mum or your child, whatever your situation, God sees you and he loves you and he cares about you. He will not leave you or abandon you. When nobody else sees you, he does. In your grief and heartache and confusion, he is with you and he will sustain you. He is your hope and he can make a way through.
You are not invisible. You matter.
As we celebrate Mums and women today, and as we thank them for all they do, I pray that you would have an encounter with the God who sees you. I pray that hope would rise in you, and that the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3) would draw near.
- Susie Raybould
However, I am aware that ‘happy’ isn’t always a word that describes this day.
When I was younger, we would buy my Mum flowers on Mother’s Day and make her breakfast in bed, and all the women in church would get a flower. It was a day that I took for granted, until I lost my Mum.
I never knew that just one day could become so painful. The marketing emails, the cards and banners in shops exclaiming ‘Mother’s Day,’ people casually sharing about what they’d buy for their Mum and how they’d go and see her, became like daggers to my heart. They were a reminder that I would never celebrate another Mother’s Day in the same way. I couldn’t bear to listen to conversations about Mother’s Day and just the mention of it made me want to cry. I wanted to shout at everyone, ‘but I don’t have my Mum anymore!’
There are many reasons why Mother’s Day may be difficult for people today. Perhaps this resonates with you.
As we approach Mother’s Day this year, I want to remind you that God is the God who sees you. In Genesis 16:13, we see a Mum who is struggling. She runs away into the desert and in this place of hopelessness encounters the God who sees her. El Roi, the Hebrew name which describes God, reveals God as the one who ‘sees, looks or gazes.’
If you have lost your Mum, if you have lost your child, if you are longing to be a Mum, if you have a broken relationship with your Mum or your child, whatever your situation, God sees you and he loves you and he cares about you. He will not leave you or abandon you. When nobody else sees you, he does. In your grief and heartache and confusion, he is with you and he will sustain you. He is your hope and he can make a way through.
You are not invisible. You matter.
As we celebrate Mums and women today, and as we thank them for all they do, I pray that you would have an encounter with the God who sees you. I pray that hope would rise in you, and that the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3) would draw near.
- Susie Raybould
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