Originally prayed at the Mother’s Day service at St Matthias Anglican Church in May 2025.
Our Great God and Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the giver of all life. And we thank you that you are a relational God.
We praise you for creating motherhood.
We thank you for the women in our congregation who are mothers, through birth, adoption, or fostering.
We pray, Father, that you will be their joy in the delights of motherhood. That you will be their comfort in the difficulties and sorrows that come with being a mum.
We pray for all our mothers, whether married or single, that they will be supported by family members, friends, and all of us here, as their church family. We pray that we will support them spiritually, physically, and relationally.
We thank you for those in our church who are grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Help them share and model Christian wisdom and love to their younger generations. We praise you, Lord, for those of us who have enjoyed the numerous blessings of a good mother.
We pray for those of us whose mothers have died, or who are ill, and for any complexities we have with those griefs, that you will console us. That we will take to heart that we are your precious children and that you never let us go.
In your mercy, please save any of our mothers who are not Christian.
We pray for any of us who have a complex relationship, or no relationship, with our mothers, or whose mothers have harmed us, that you, God of all goodness and love, will continue to comfort us and give us wisdom. And as a church family, that we will care for those amongst us who have difficult relationships with their mothers.
Dear Lord, we know that we can come to you in our deepest grief and lament, since you alone have the power over life and death; you are the eternal Lord. We bring before you now those of us who have had a child who has died. For those of us who have miscarried. For those of us who are struggling with infertility. For those of us who are not in a position to become a physical mother and would dearly love to be. For for those of us who are estranged from our children. For those of us who have difficult relationships with our children.
Please help us grieve well. That we will bring our laments to you. We know that you always see us, so we pray that will encourage us to keep facing you in our distress. Please give us that deep peace which is only found in you, even in our sorrows that come with living this side of the new creation.
Our Father, we thank you that all the women in our church have the privilege to be spiritual mothers, whether we have children or not. Thank you that so many women in our church already exercise this gift. We pray that each of us may keep coming to a deeper understanding that none of us are neutral; that we do influence others. So we pray that each of us as Christian women will keep taking up opportunities to be spiritual mothers, to influence people for good. To help people grow in their love and joy of Jesus.
Father, we pray for all these things for Jesus’ name’s sake, and for his glory.
AMEN.
