Mother’s Day: Yeah?

Mother’s Day is fast approaching.  The local Wal-Mart has boxes filled with flowers.  Every type of store has a collection of cards.  Childcare providers are planning art activities with macaroni and yarn.  Fathers are beginning to panic because they aren’t sure what will make mom happiest.  Mother’s Day is like Spring’s celebration of life, and everyone is invited to the party.

Not everyone anticipates Mother’s Day.  For years, a friend of mine would grieve because she didn’t have the child she longed for. Other’s have lost a child and every day is still painful. Some grieve the fact that their mother wasn’t much of a mother.  Some are mothers who feel like a failure because their child has shut them out of their life.  Some are annoyed over the celebration because they are experiencing a season of motherhood that is hard; motherhood wasn’t what they thought it would be. And there’s those whose mother is no longer living. They ache to make a phone call to someone who no longer can answer. 

I want to tell you: you are seen.  I see you; I ache with you.

More importantly, God sees you. 

In the Old Testament there is a story about a woman named Hagar.  She was the slave of a woman named Sari.  Sari’s husband was Abram, later called Abraham.  In Genesis 12, God promises Abram that He will make Abram into a great nation.  That promise is repeated in Genesis 15 when Abram talks with God about the fact that he doesn’t have any children. God promises Abram that he will father a child.  Life goes on and still no child.  In Genesis 16, Sari suggests a common cultural solution when one doesn’t have a child; she recommends Abram sleep with her servant and if a child is produced, it will be their child.  Abram thinks the plan is solid and he sleeps with Hagar.  Hagar gets pregnant, but the story doesn’t end with a happily ever after. 

Pregnant Hagar sees herself as better than barren Sari. Sari, living in her own pain, begins to treat Hagar exceedingly cruel, and Hagar runs away.  An angel of the Lord finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness, and he asks her what her story is.  Hagar takes advantage of the willing ear and reveals all. The angel tells Hagar she needs to go back, and she will indeed have a son, a blessed prize in their culture.  In Genesis 16:11, the angel tells her, “You will name him Ishmael (which means God Hears), for the Lord as heard your cry of affliction.” Verse 13 of Genesis 16 says, “So [Hagar] named the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are El-Roi,’ for she said, ‘In this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?’”

From this point on in the Bible, God is known as the God who sees.  He saw Hagar in the wilderness, and He sees you as well. No matter where you are, what you are experiencing, God sees you.  He knows exactly what you are facing and feeling.

The story of Hagar doesn’t end there.  She has a second encounter with God in Genesis 21. God has changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sari’s name to Sarah.  Abraham is 100 and Sarah is in her 90’s when God blesses them with a son they name Isaac.  Despite God’s faithfulness to her, Sarah continues to believe Hagar and Ishmael are a threat, so she banishes them. 

In devastation, Hagar trudges back to the wilderness, this time with her son Ishmael. Her water is gone too soon, and scripture says she places her son under one of the bushes and sits a distance away because she can’t bear to watch him die.  Hagar has circled back to the end of her rope.  She may have remembered all God told her when she was pregnant.  The thought that God sees her may have been flitting in and out of her consciousness, but her fear and anguish are too great for the idea to gain any solid footing in her mind. 

Genesis 21:17-19 reads, “God heard the boy crying and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, ‘What’s wrong Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard the boy crying from the place where he is.  Get up, help the boy up, and grasp his hand, for I will make him a great nation.’ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well.  So she went and filled the waterskin and gave the boy a drink.”

In Hagar’s first encounter with God, she knows God to be the one who sees her.  In her second encounter with God, God helps her to see.  That’s who God is for all of us.  He sees us, and He helps us see what we need to keep living. 

This week when your emotions are raw.  This week when grief overtakes you in a moment.  This week when memories aren’t enough to fill the ache.  This week when your dreams seem excruciatingly unfulfilled.  This week when your pain and longing run too deep to describe.  God sees you. He is waiting to help you see.  He’s prepared to show you how there can still be life. 

I’m praying for you.