In Times of Loneliness, Look Up: A Mother's Day Reflection

Mother’s day 2020 was a day of deep reflection for me. We had just moved back to my childhood home in Alabama in March of 2020 and I was to give birth to our third child in July. There was a lot going on. 

We had moved down right as the pandemic had caused everything to shut down, including all the churches. We had planned on finding a fellowship here so that we could make connections. Friends. 

But that wasn’t happening, and I felt very lonely. 

I found myself down in the woods by our creek with my husband on Mother’s Day afternoon. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and the air smelled like everything that was blooming all around. We had stolen away together for a few minutes while our boys stayed at the house with my mom, so that we could have some quiet time to pray together. I ended up unloading some deep thoughts that had been swirling around in my heart and head for some time. I unloaded the loneliness that I had been feeling, which felt good, because I didn’t really know how lonely I was and how much it was affecting me until I word vomited it out there in the woods. 

I had no community of women at that point. I had no spiritual mentor who I could go to with the deep things that God had been showing me, to have someone to hash it out with. I need sisters who love the Lord and are sharp, so that you may also be sharpened. I don’t want to sit around and just shoot the breeze all day. Yes, that is nice sometimes, but I want my conversations to be fueled with the fire of the Spirit. To have conversations that direct my gaze back to Him when I have been fighting the world all day. I don’t say that to be holier than thou, I say it because I know how weak I am. When I am not surrounding myself with conversations that direct my broken thoughts back to God and His goodness, I end up in a sad state. So, I poured out that I had not had community in a long time- probably since we had left Florida in 2015, where we were involved in an organic house church. I was constantly around other women who were head over heels for the Lord. When we were together, we all delighted in speaking of Jesus and the things that He was doing in our lives, and just generally uplifting one another. Once you experience community like that and then leave it, it definitely leaves something missing in your daily life. 

“I have no friends. Not really.” 

And in the sense I meant it, that was true. I didn’t have anyone I was close to at that point. I had just gone through a huge move and was pregnant with two little boys running around, trying to homeschool them, and I had no friends. I was a lonely mama. Then, as if that weren’t enough, the shut down happened and so I couldn’t even see anyone’s face, which I know you all understand. I just wanted someone to confide in. Someone I could ask for prayer for. Someone who has walked the road I am walking, especially spiritually, so that I could look to their life as an example of what motherhood steeped in holiness should look like. I did not have any example to look to, and I felt like I was floundering. 

The creek in our woods

Fast forward to Mother’s Day 2021. 

We had been learning about the Catholic Church since February/March time, and so I was already familiar with Mary and the Saints. I had started to read about their lives and was amazed by these women. I felt like I knew them and to know that they were alive in Heaven with the Lord, and that they were interceding for me was incredible. Nick brought up something to my attention, regarding how the last Mother’s Day had gone. He reminded me of the things that I had wept over, about how I had no females to look to for spiritual guidance. He said to me to consider what I had found since then. Mary and all the female saints. A great cloud of witnesses, ready to pray for me when I am struggling in motherhood, marriage, or homemaking. The Mother of all mothers to look toward when I am feeling worn down. To look to her example of giving her “yes”. The saints who were martyred because of their faith in the Lord. I wasn’t alone, and I had “friends in high places”, if you will. I just wept because it was the most beautiful realization and answer to prayer. I had asked God for a spiritual mother to look to for an example, and He revealed one I had always heard about, yet never payed too much attention to. And now, she has become someone who is of extreme importance to me. Mary, the Mother of God. 

“L'Innocence” by William Bouguereau

So now, when I am struggling, I of course pray for Jesus to help me and to the Holy Spirit to guide me…but now I can also ask for Mary and the saints to pray for me. You can never have enough prayer, right? And now I have all of these beautiful women to look toward for inspiration. I am currently trying to get better at being social again, which I think everyone needed to work at after being holed away for what seemed like years. We need community that is flesh and blood . But, I am also so thankful for the community that I can ask for prayer in Heaven. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said, “When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens, I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.” I have a framed photo of her in my room that I often look at. She is not my confirmation saint, but I have so much love for her, and she is a big part of my story. I read that quote and it makes me glad to know that I can ask for her to pray for me. I feel like she is a friend that I haven’t gotten to meet in person, and yet, I know her and cherish her friendship deeply. 

So, I am in a very different place this Mother’s Day than I was three years ago, and I am so grateful. And I am reminded of what a gift it is to be a mother- to have said “yes” to this vocation and know that even if I feel lonely, I am not alone.

The Most Important Person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral—a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body….The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation….What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this; to be a mother?

-József Cardinal Mindszenty