A Missing Piece on Mother’s Day

On May 11, 2025, many individuals will celebrate Mother’s Day.

This special day will offer children and adults a time to recognize and honor the mothers in their lives. Some moms may wake up to fresh flowers, breakfast in bed, handmade cards, or other unique gifts from their children (or husbands, if their child is too young to participate, hint, hint!).

After all, this holiday is a small way to celebrate the women who remembered to wash all the clothes, buy groceries, plan meals, clean the house, juggle appointments, and accomplish hundreds of other daily tasks.

This Mother’s Day is special to me because it is my first time celebrating with my little one. At the church we attend, they always hand out roses to each mom in attendance on this day. Since I was young, I couldn’t wait to secure one of those beautiful flowers, signifying that I was a mama – the most cherished role I could ever imagine.

However, for all the good things that Mother’s Day 2025 will hold for me, this holiday is also seasoned with grief. Mere months ago, I was also carrying my second child, whom I lost due to a miscarriage.

Each day, I can’t help but think about where I would be in that pregnancy and what I would be feeling as I inch toward that November due date that will never come.

And I know I’m not the only one who has experienced these thoughts and feelings.

The Mayo Clinic explains, “About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But the actual number is likely higher.” Meanwhile, the CDC states that “Stillbirth affects about 1 in 175 births, and each year about 21,000 babies are stillborn in the United States. That is about the same as the number of babies that die during the first year of life.”

Many of you reading this blog have also faced the grueling pain of child loss or know of someone in your life who has experienced it. May it be miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, or the loss of a child later in life, it is a pain like no other, and often, there is nothing in this world that helps shake these feelings.

As a mom of one of these unfortunate circumstances, most days, grief catches me off guard and out of nowhere. For mothers who have stepped into these uncomfortable and unwanted shoes, these feelings can seem heightened as Mother’s Day arrives.

Thankfully, there is still hope.

In Psalm 139:13-16, Scripture explains how meaningful these little lives we carried in our wombs are. It says:

For You formed my inward parts;

You wove me in my mother’s womb.

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Wonderful are Your works,

And my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

Regardless of how old that precious child was, the Creator of the Universe still knew and loved them, just as we, as mamas, did while we had them with us - no matter how long or short the amount of time that may have been.

The Lord saw them before they were ever conceived! Just like you and I, they were fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of the Lord. They mattered to Him before they mattered to us.

This Mother’s Day, regardless of whether or not your child is in your arms or in His arms, you are a mom. You are not forgotten, even if those around you fail to acknowledge that truth. The Lord sees and loves you amid the pain, just like he saw and knew the soul of your precious child before He gifted him or her to you.

The righteous cry, and the Lord hears
And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:17-18).