Happy Mother’s Day! I know it can be a somewhat controversial or challenging holiday for some, but like so many other things I believe that Mother’s Day is a choice. Sometimes God’s plan for you isn’t the one that you most desire most and you have to decide if you’re going to accept the plan He has for you or choose to be miserable. I’ve worked with hundreds of families in various capacities and it’s nothing like having your own children but even just working with children fills a child-spaced hole inside my heart, and that’s only one of the many options that are available including adoption and fostering or becoming like an extra parent to a sibling or best friend’s kids.
Family is definitely what you make of it. Not all of the years of being a family will be sunshine and rainbows, there will be some hard times and difficult decisions, things that you wish you didn’t have to expose your child to (like pandemics and financial struggles) but the best thing we can do sometimes is just keep going and show our kids how to be resilient and make sure a day never goes by that they don’t know we love them.
As the adult in the relationship we have a choice in how we approach things and the effort and affection we put towards our kids and their comfort in a situation. They won’t love everything, but if we have the opportunity to make something that might be challenging more exciting or like an adventure, or find a happy medium between bringing all of their favorite things and letting them choose just one or two, or help them easily see and accomplish rewards that they can earn for trying hard things, at least they’ll have some positive experiences when it comes to challenging things in their lives and know that at least some of the time they will be rewarded for working hard.
Maybe most important of all: when you have a chance to celebrate you should. Days like Christmas, Mother’s Day and birthdays don’t come around every day, most days aren’t a holiday. But when you’ve got an opportunity to stop or at least slow down and appreciate those you love, celebrate their life or recognize all the good you have in your life, you should. And even when it’s a hard thing to celebrate because that person isn’t with you anymore, it’s still an opportunity for you to remember the good times and share those memories with those you love who didn’t know them so that they can know them too.