Even in the most broken places, there is room for love

A birds-eye view of about six sets of hands, stacked on top of one another

Mother's Day is complicated. Joyful for many, yes, but complicated.

It's right there on the calendar, even if your mother has died. Even if you've been told, yet again, that you're still not pregnant; or if you've never been more scared than you are right now because you are pregnant, it's Mother's Day. Even if your own mother's priorities included everything but you, there's going to be a Mother's Day google doodle with flowers and pink stuff. Even if you have scars, ones you can see or ones you can't, it's Mother's Day. That cake mix commercial is going to roll out four times an hour even when you can't stop shaking and crying because you can't believe you slapped your little boy today. It's Mother's Day. And we all have to live with that, in those silent, breathless moments, because even when the baby dies, it's Mother's Day.

And so let's go to church. Let's be a church where we can acknowledge how difficult it is to have this day, right alongside how joyful this day can be. Let's be a church where don't pretend there aren't inky depths of space between us even when we sing. Let's be a church that fills the space between our differences with love. Because even in the most broken places, there is room for love. We can be that church.