Some of our favorite writers try to answer the question: How do you celebrate Mother's Day when you're no longer a kid?

Mother’s Day is fast approaching (it’s this Sunday!). In recognition, we asked some of our favorite writers (from the Burnside Writers Collective) to reflect on this most important of Hallmark Holidays. After you read their reflections, we’d love for you to share your own thoughts in the comments. You’re not a kid anymore—do you still observe Mother’s Day? How do you honor your mom?

“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.” These are the words of Anna Jarvis, founder of the Mother’s Day holiday in the United States. It seems within a decade of creating the holiday, Ms. Jarvis was already soured by its commercialization, and I can’t say I blame her.

Here’s the thing, go check out a human physiology DVD from your local library and watch the section on birth. Yeah, your mom endured that so you can be here today, so a $3 card every 12 months doesn’t really compensate her for the effort. In fact it’s almost an insult.

That’s why I don’t buy my mom cards, and I don’t send her flowers, at least not on the second Sunday in May. Instead I usually make her a ridiculous drawing that depicts Lando Calrissian and me playing golf. And I do this without a trace of guilt, because the rest of the year I make a conscious effort to give my mother all the love and honor she deserves. I think Ms. Jarvis would approve.

—Chad Gibbs is the author of God and Football (Zondervan, August 2010).

Our first child was born last July, so this Mother’s Day will be my first as an actual mom. As a child, Mother’s Day consisted of making homemade cards, taking mom breakfast in bed and doing what we could to give her a “day off” from mothering.

I think, when God looks at my relationship with my mother, He sees an old blanket full of holes. Some of the holes have been patched up, but gaping ones remain. I often wish my mom and I could go back and stop the tears in our relationship when the damage was still minimal and easier to repair. I worry about the hurts my son and I will inflict on each other in the years to come and how holey our blanket might look when he is my age.

I’ve spent the last several days with my mom and her family, mourning and celebrating the sudden loss of her father. In light of his unexpected passing, I’ve decided that the best way for me to celebrate my mom this Sunday is to get to work on some of those bigger holes in need of mending in our relationship, in hopes that our son will see us offering each other grace for past wounds and do the same for me some day.

—Sara Sterley is Deputy Editor of the Burnside Writers Collective and a regular contributor to RELEVANT Magazine.

C.S. Lewis counted four; but what's the word for a seemingly insane Love? Love that incites bitter arguments, only to dissolve them within seconds? That cheerfully inflicts pain, however deserved? As a stay-home dad, I enjoy that part: "My ears can't hear ugly talk." "Supper will taste that much better."  "Why did the cat bite you? Maybe because you poked her with chopsticks?" Mom taught me how to speak: LIKE A MOM.

 For a long time—until I had a child, right—I imagined Mom was the insane one. What else could explain a Love that so deranged my plans? Mom's Love didn't make demands, exactly; but if I forgot to call, Love deftly conjured Guilt. "Sounds like you're keeping busy." I meant to call! "We probably wouldn't have been home anyway." I'M SUCCESSFUL—ISN'T THIS WHAT YOU WANTED??? "What I want isn't important." 

Time to chalk up Mother Love on the big board, along with ... Agape! Eros!  Storge! Philia!  (Give your Mom a call, now, will ya?)

—Josh Langhoff lives in Chicago. His writing has appeared in the Village Voice, Decibel, the Minneapolis City Pages and the Burnside Writers Collective.

I called my mom this week. The word “flabbergasted” most appropriately captures her response. It took her around 20 minutes to figure out who was calling.

When I was a child, honoring my mom meant obeying her (e.g., I would keep my shoes on at all times to avoid the life-threatening bite of the deadly fire ant). Now I’m 28. Am I supposed to obey her "strong suggestion" that I leave my city and friends and job because I have seasonal allergies?

Maybe humility is a good place to start; maybe acknowledging that my mom might know some things I don’t. Maybe honoring her means inviting her into my life as if God actually appointed her to be the means through which life came to me. 

This Mother’s Day, I’ll call my mom. Because the truth is, I have no idea what I’m doing down here. And, it might just be the grace of God to provide someone a little further ahead on the trail to help me navigate this crazy terrain.

—Fabienne Harford lives in Austin, Texas where she works on staff at The Austin Stone Community Church.

Allison, my wife, each minute for 20, 60, 90 minutes, screams, bears down, holds her breath—push! A minute later, she begins again. And again. Jonah, our son, is so close. I look at Allison’s face, at her body, at the shaking, the exhaling, the begin-again. This is the making of a mother.

Have you ever seen a mother become a mother? Have you seen her giving birth? It is beautiful and mysterious, something from God. Her face becomes all things at once—curse, exile, vulnerability, weakness, pain, ruin and then among these she is life, is this life-giver, is this woman with strength enough for one more go. Now, here, looking at her, I believe that, while nothing is weaker, still nothing is more powerful, than this woman, this unity of all things, as, again, she screams, bears down, holds her breath. She looks at me, and I love her, and I hold her. God, in her face, has shown me things I have no name for, but for all time when I think of her, and of my own mother, and of all mothers, I am at peace—gratitude filling, filling, filling my body.

—Carlos Delgado is an Assistant Professor of English at Biola University.

Our mom likes to mess with us. At least, my brother, my sister and I remember her messing with us. Our favorite childhood memories are of her presumptions of our naiveté: she served us liver but told us it was beef; she gave out packages of pennies instead of candy at Halloween; most famously, she made Jello using vegetable water. I can’t tell you what a revelation my first cafeteria Jello was.

But she wasn’t out to connive us—she was out to improve us, by any means necessary. Pennies are infinitely healthier than candy, and making Jello with vegetable water offers far more nutritional value than following the instructions on the package. We pain Mom with our teasing about her well-intentioned deceptions, but we love her for the intention—and the deception. We like to mess with mom, but we know we are products of her benevolent trickery.

—David A. Zimmerman is the author of Deliver Us from Me-Ville.

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