We know that Mothering Sunday isn't a day of celebration for everybody. So, there is a service for everyone this Sunday at All Saints, Kenley

 

 

Mothering Sunday can be hard for many people. 

Sometimes our relationship with our mum isn’t what we might have wanted it to be, or our Mum is no longer with us and a happy service isn’t right for us; or your Mum or Nana might be seriously ill and it all feels overwhelming. Maybe you have experienced miscarriages or the death of a child. Maybe the day makes you think of people you have lost and you want to remember them quietly. Maybe you long to have children but it just hasn’t happened. It can often feel like these thoughts and memories and feelings aren’t allowed. But that's not the case. They are just as important as everything that goes on all the cards and alongside the bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates.

You still might want to do something to mark Mothering Sunday but not with a celebration. Maybe you want to say 'I miss you’ or 'I know you tried your best’ or ‘I forgive you’. Maybe you want to cry for a child you never got to be a parent for as they grew up or to say 'I tried my best and I love you’. You might want to cry out to God for the children you wish you had but don’t. Or you might want to do none of those things because they aren’t right for you.

So I just wanted to remind you that at our 8am service at All Saints we will be following the readings for the day - not Mothers’ Day. In fact, at this service we’ll be thinking about one of the most important lines in John’s Gospel: ‘God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him’.

At that service there will be an opportunity to write the name of the mother figures in your life who have died, or children you have mothered whom you have lost; symbols of broken relationships, a symbol of the burdens you carry as well as celebrating good relationships and good mothering. But it won’t be part of our service - just an option available for you at the back of the church which we will offer to God at our 10am service.

So whether you find Mothering Sunday hard and want to ignore it completely; whether you want to mark it in a quieter way; whether you are off to see your Mum later in the day and can’t make 10am or if you want to give thanks in a full church surrounded by noise and Simnel cake, there is a place for you at All Saints this Sunday.