Mother's Day Livestream Timeline

Faith and motherhood. Do these two things mix? Does faith make a difference to being a Mum? What about when things go wrong? On this week's Livestream, we hear the stories from everyday Mum's and their journey of faith and motherhood.

• 08:36 - CROWD Church Livestream Intro
• 17:24 - Kids say the funniest things about their Mom.
• 18:46 - Mother's Day introduction from Sal
• 21:55 - Claire: How God comforted my with a stillbirth
• 25:20 - Jenni: How faith helped my son with his school
• 29:16 - Kirsten: Asking your child for forgiveness
• 31:18 - Charlotte: The rollercoaster ride of motherhood
• 37:55 - Worship: I will exalt
• 42:44 - Conversation Street, where we ask:
  • Do you think if you, if you're a mum, to have someone who is a bit further on than you that you can talk to that you can get that advice from?
  • How do you cope with the mixed emotions of Mother's Day?
  • How do you deal with Perfect Mom/Mum Syndrome?
• 56:38 - Catchup with Josh
• 59:51 - Coming up next week
• 1:08:01 - Closing Worship

Mother's Day Talk (Sally)

Hi, everybody. Happy Mother's Day. We're outside today. The sun is shining. It feels like spring is in the air or certainly on its way. And there's a little bit of hope around the corner. So Happy Mother's Day.

How do you feel when I say Happy Mother's Day? It's a difficult one, isn't it?

And for me, it comes with two really big emotions:

• Firstly, it makes me feel sad when I see it everywhere. And I see it in the shops and everything I feel that sense of loss because my mom died young and so I don't get to send her a Mother's Day card or plan a special treat for us or see her on those days and it makes me miss her even more.
• But on the other hand, I've got two amazing daughters and I know that they're gonna want to celebrate Mother's Day with me. And that's, that's amazing. I'm so so lucky to have them. I'm so proud of Keoni and Willa and the amazing girls that they are.

So it's those two very different emotions. And that's quite difficult, isn't it to manage those two things?

So what about you? How does it make you feel? Maybe you have a difficult relationship with your mom. Or maybe your mum died young, or perhaps you have longed to be a mom. And for whatever reason, it hasn't happened for you. Or maybe tragically, you've had a miscarriage or lost a child. And I'm so sorry if that's you today. And I want you to know that I acknowledge your pain. And that it's okay for you to not want to celebrate Mother's Day or for you to feel those two very different emotions when somebody says Happy Mother's Day.

I hope that today, you know that you are loved and that you can find some comfort today.

Now, recently, it was the anniversary of my mom's death. And grief just kind of changes as time goes by. And I wrote this poem to sort of explain how I was feeling. And it's called the Lake of ice.

And it's on those worst days, that it's a real comfort to me to know that I can go to God and that God loves me. And he understands. And he can bring me comfort. It's not a magic fix. It doesn't make the pain go away. But it just helps to know that he is there. And with me through it. So however you're feeling today, I hope that brings you some comfort. We've got four amazing women who are going to share their own stories of their faith, and motherhood.

Claire: How God comforted my with a stillbirth

My faith has made a huge difference to me being a mum, I remember when we were trying for a family about 13 years ago. And at the time just thinking of when I get pregnant, it's going to be fine. I mean, how hard can it be?

I was a teacher at the time. So I knew how to talk to children. I knew how to teach. I knew how to work with children. And quite naively at that time. That's all I thought I needed to know. And then when I was pregnant with our first son, I became really, really poorly in the pregnancy. And he was born a couple of months early. He was in special care for a month. And it was a really, really hard time. It was incredibly scary from one day to the next. Just knowing that I had God I could go to him and tell him that I was scared. And trusting that if I asked for my son to be healed and asked for him to be okay. I believed that God would do that. And he would allow that and he was our son was fine. With then went on to have a stillbirth a couple of years later. And to this day, I don't understand why that happened. And I get incredibly sad and really angry when I think about it. But when I look back, I've got no idea how I'd have got through that time without my faith. I would lie in bed at night and I would just cry and pray for God to comfort me because that's all I knew how to do. I just needed to feel him I needed to feel comforted and held by him. And I've got no idea how I'd have gone through that without knowing that I would see my daughter again, without knowing that I could get God's comfort. We are now parents to a little girl who's got really complex needs. And our patience is tested on a daily basis. It's exhausting. It's really, really hard work. And lockdown has been really tough. Just before Christmas her bubble burst in school. And I had no idea, no idea how we were going to cope. And I prayed and prayed for patience. And I did you know I did feel more patient. But also neighbours dropped round meals after I prayed they dropped round meals and they dropped round craft things for our little girl to make things look absolutely amazing. As I've been thinking about this, Psalm 9:10 has come to mind and it says my everyone who knows your mercy keep putting their trust in you, for they can count on you for help no matter what, that has been the biggest thing for me, knowing that when I'm struggling, when my patience is tested, when I don't feel very well, when I'm scared, when I'm anxious, when I don't know what to do, I can go to God, and I can just be with him. And it's, it's someone for me to say, I really can't cope, I really need your comfort, and I really need your support. And that's how my faith has helped me be a mum.

Jenni: How faith helped my son with his school

Little bit of background. I've got two children, they're 14 and 11. And anyone who knows me will tell you, I love being organised. I love being in control. I love things working out just the way I've planned. So for me, faith really has to step in for the times, and there are multiple, where I'm not in control where my best laid plans aren't working out. And I heavily rely on God in faith, that things will pan out the way I want them to. One such example relatively recently is my youngest son has started senior school and going back to applications for those who don't know, in Liverpool, you don't all just follow from one primary school to the feeder senior school, you spend your time looking around different schools, and you apply orders one to five and hope to goodness, you get the school that will best suit your child. My son applied back in October 2019. We were lucky before the pandemic and he was able to look around the schools. And having done this process once before my daughter, we did the same as before we prayed in faith that as we looked around the schools, we get a real sense of peace at the right school for him. Our application was made and nothing was done then until March when the results come through. And they come through by email. I waited up 11:58, 11:59 checking my phone midnight. One minute past midnight, the email came through and my son didn't get his first choice school got a second choice, which was one we'd obviously favoured. And immediately my stomach did a somersault. I wasn't in control. And I went back to my default I prayed I pray God, Lord, this isn't the school my son wanted as his top choice. I know he's going to be anxious and he's gonna be fearful. He's not with his friends, potentially. Lord, I just pray that there is a reason he's been given this school, and that he will be happy and settled there. And he will have friends there. The next morning, my son was less than pleased with the news. He was very anxious mainly about the friendships I think. But in answer to our prayer, within minutes of arriving at primary school that morning, one of his very closest friends was also going to the school. As we went through the next few months, and he was preparing for joining the school, he was still very anxious. But we got news that he was going in the same form as his very close friend, so he had a friend on the first day. And we just kept praying that this was the right thing for him. As we get a practice bus from maybe in August. I think it must have been maybe early September in preparation from starting the school. On the bus, we actually drove past the school he'd hoped for his first choice. He looked at me said Mom, I wish I was still going there. But I think I'm going to be okay. So it's still got me but I was reassured and again, we prayed on this. But the first morning he started his new school. Again, in faith, we prayed he, my husband and myself together and he came out buzzing that day. He's gone on through one term of school where Fortunately, he managed his entire term September to December in school before the latest lockdown, and he has grown in friendship and independence. And I really think this was a total answer to prayer. I thank God that we were in faith and that we stuck with it. We didn't go through appeals or anything else. And he is the place where he's meant to be in a school and he loves it.

Kirsten: Asking your child for forgiveness

Hi I'm Kirsten, and I've got two boys who are 15 and 13. When they were little, we spent quite a bit of time talking about what it might look like to bring them up in the Christian faith and how we wanted to avoid them thinking that the Bible was just a list of rules. And God was some sort of santa in the sky, watching them to see if they were naughty or nice. We thought probably the key to avoid that was to major on forgiveness, just like the teachings of Jesus major on forgiveness. That's the whole point of the Christian faith, not a list of rules, but how we can receive God's forgiveness. So we've tried to apply that to how we parent our two boys. So for example, we've always tried to apologise to our boys when we've got it wrong. Or say to them, you know, something like, I shouldn't have spoken to you like that, I'm sorry. Or if my husband and I have argued in front of the boys, as we occasionally do, we've tried to make sure that when we've resolved that between us, we've also apologised to one another in front of our children. So they can see how forgiveness heals and strengthens relationships. We've tried to encourage them to take responsibility for their own mistakes, and apologise. And as they've got older, we've seen them grow into that. They'll come to us and say, Mum, Dad, I've made this mistake. I shouldn't have done that. And I'm sorry. And when they do that, we try to respond with love, and grace, just as God responds to us when we come to him that way. So yes, we just wanted to model that value at the heart of the Christian faith. The value of seeking forgiveness.

Charlotte: The rollercoaster ride of motherhood

The journey of life has been described like a roller coaster. And that is definitely true. for the, for the ride of motherhood, it's like an extreme white knuckle ride at a theme park. And that's been my experience over the last 28 years, you know, whether it's having an brand new baby, dealing with toddlers, preschoolers, then children at school teenagers and all the fun that that brings. And then the stage that I'm now at, where my children have grown and flown, and I'm navigating my way through parenting adult children. The truth is that it is a it's an adrenalin filled, ride that goes ups and downs, which is what life is, isn't it. And you know, with every twist and turn, that comes, our hearts minds and bodies can feel kind of knocked about this way. And that way, sometimes literally, we feel that we're being turned upside down. And inside out, in our emotions, and and with our physical bodies as well. There's tiredness to contend with. And the challenges that that brings up the different seasons of parenting. For me, I've come to understand what it means being a Christian, a follower of Jesus. And God's word says his bite, the Bible tells us that God is with me always. And for me, it's about having his presence and having a relationship with him every moment of every single day. So it's a bit like having God in my roller coaster, car. And not just that, it's knowing his security. God's love brings me peace, it brings me joy. It brings me love, it brings me hope. For those moments when actually I feel like I'm literally going to be chucked thrown out of the car, I find a roller coaster I can make you feel sick. It's all that adrenaline that surges. And, and for me, knowing God's love. And knowing God's presence with me in every moment has been the thing that I can say has changed my life. As a mom, you know, whether it's going through those early days with new babies right up into the stage that I'm at now and beyond becoming a grandparent. And I think the truth is, for every single month, those sleepless nights never end. It doesn't I might now not be up changing nappies and feeding, making bottles or feeding in the middle of the night. But actually, those sleepless nights stay the same, you lay awake and you're worrying about your children. That is a huge burden to carry. Even if you have a great partner to share that with is still a huge burden. Whereas for me having the ability to take all my concerns for my precious ones to God. And the Bible tells me that I can pray about anything at any time. Doesn't matter how big or how small. And I can as I do that, and I pray and I talk to God, which is what prayer is. I just give him my concerns, my worries. And there is this amazing thing that happens that as I speak to him, he I know he's taking them and in his put in the place I received God's peace and God's love In God's comfort, and I know I can trust Him, I'm trusting him for my precious ones, God's promises that he can be with them all the time, even when I can't. And for a parent that's a really big thing is very different when your children are small, and you can strap them in the buggy and you know where they are. But for a parent of adult children, where you're trusting your children, it's perfectly like mine lived on the other side of the world, you have to trust, I have to trust that God is watching over them. And he is that is his promise to each one of us every moment of every single day. And I'm so grateful for that.

Mother's Day Discussion

Matt Edmundson

How important is it? Do you think if you, if you're a mum, to have someone who is a bit further on than you that you can talk to that you can get that advice from

Sally Burch

I think really just essential, really, there's so much when you become a mum for the first time, there's so it's really scary. There's so much unknown, I found it didn't sort of come naturally to me some of the things and I wasn't really sure what to do about some things. There's so much that you want to know or you want just someone to say to you. Yeah, that's normal. Don't worry about that. Or, yeah, you're doing fine. You're doing fine. That's really all you need. But to have somebody who's just even just a little bit further on from you, really, really helps. And I live in a city where I have amazing, amazing friends but no family nearby. So my friends became that that community that family that really helped me and then family that live further away. We're always you know, at the end of the phone if I if I needed something, but yeah, I would say that is it's really important to get yourself part of that kind of group of people that can say, you're doing fine, it's okay because it's hard. Really hard.

Matt Edmundson

So on one hand, you've got this amazing, you know, experience from your beautiful daughters. But on the other hand, obviously, you are experienced something that I'm not at the moment in the fact that your mom has passed away, and she passed away way too early. How how do you cope with that? How do you manage that mixed emotions?

Sally Burch

Yeah, that's really hard. Especially I mean, it's been, I think it's 11 years this year since my mom died. And at first, it was really hard to be able to kind of celebrate and feel that pain at the same time. And those days were really difficult. And don't get me wrong, those days are still difficult. I think it's kind of what I was saying in mine is that grief changes. And I still miss my mom every day. But I've kind of got used to how I manage that pain on days, like today, I find the build up is actually worse than the day itself. The actual sort of seeing the things in the shops and kind of thinking about what I perhaps would have done if my mom was here. And that's kind of harder than when it actually comes to the day. You know, the girls are there and we're doing things and it's busy. And it's quite different. So it's definitely the build up for me. They say Time heals it, it doesn't it just allows you to kind of live with it differently. That's been my experience. And so that's that's kind of how I deal with those two things. But it's hard. It's really hard.

Matt Edmundson

I thought you're very brave. So how can I ask, do you do anything on Mother's Day to remember your mum?

Sally Burch

No, not specifically on Mother's Day. On other days, we do. On her birthday on the anniversary of when she died. Those are the sort of days that we would do something kind of special to remember her. On her birthday, we try and do something fun that she would have loved altogether to kind of remember her like that. But no, on Mother's Day, I don't actually kind of do anything apart from just thinking about the mother's days that we did spend together and wishing that when I was younger, I'd you know been a bit better at kind of spoiling her and things. You know, when I was a kid, you know, when she was a single mom, and I'm not sure how good me and my brother were actually kind of spoiling her on Mother's Day. So yeah. You can't change those bits.

Matt Edmundson

No, you can't. And I I kind of feel a bit sorry for my mom to be fair, because she had two sons, single mom had two sons. We were never going to be great at doing Mother's Day. To be fair. Hopefully, we're getting better now. Now, you know, Sharon's involved, and she helps me out tremendously. Which is just a beautiful thing. So let's talk about Claire's video, because Claire was the first video where she, I mean, just such an inspiring lady because I mean to have a stillborn child, I mean that it's just a whole different world for me. And I watched it I must have seen that video like few times now because of the editing process and just checking everything through, every time. I'm just like, Claire, you're amazing. You are fundamentally amazing.

Sally Burch

She is incredible. She, how she kind of manages to keep that faith and keep that positivity and you know, be there for other people and she's been through so much in her life is just incredible. And she's a real testament to God's love and God's faithfulness. And she's kind of, you know, really hung on to that in those dark times. I think that's what she was talking about. And that that comfort actually is real that love actually is real and can make a difference when you've been through the worst imaginable thing in life. So yeah, she is definitely an inspiration.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, I thought it was fun. And you just get challenged don't you? Sometimes because you listen to people's stories and you go man, you know. That is so inspiring. You've held on to God throughout the most complex and difficult situations. And God is real and God is They're for you. And that's just absolutely fantastic. I'm just, I'm totally stoked, totally stoked. One of the questions that did come to my mind throughout all of this is when you're a mum, you know, do you? Do you suffer with? I've not got a name for it, let's just call it perfect mum syndrome?

Sally Burch

Oh, gosh, yeah. Oh, wow, I remember that when I was pregnant with Kioni, I thought to myself, you know, I am going to be the first perfect Mother. I'm sure that you are sure that you know this Matt. Some people say I'm competitive, I don't see it myself. But you know. No, this has nothing to do with competition. But this was just like, you know, I had this thing, I don't want to make any mistakes, I don't want to, you know, I want this child to have the perfect parents their perfect upbringing, I'm gonna, you know, I'm not gonna make any mistakes at all. I do read every book, do everything. Because I wanted this kind of perfect experience for my child, and then literally, day one that's out the window. It's, it's just, you can't, you can't be perfect, none of us can be perfect. I had a whole routine, because I felt like if I could control the routine of what she did, and when she did it, then that would give me a sense of, you know, I'd know what I was doing. And I'd know what was gonna happen next. And that went out the window on day one as well. It's just really difficult. And you can't, you can't hold yourself up to that sort of standard, because you're just gonna fail. I think you just have to know that you are trying to do your best. And that's enough, your best is enough, you are the best parent for your child. And you know, doing your best in that moment. Is what they need. And we're all going to fail, we're all going to make mistakes. And we need to kind of be kind to ourselves. When we do that. We need to let ourselves off the hook. I think mothers, particularly I can can't talk to fathers. But for mothers, there's that guilt says that mother guilt all the time. Should I go? Should I work? Should I not work? Should I work part time? should I? You know, should I send my child to nursery? So I'm not saying if every decision you make you feel kind of that sort of guilt about doing the right thing. I really wish that we could just free mothers from that. We hold ourselves up to a ridiculous standard, I think.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, absolutely.

Sally Burch

Yeah. Yeah, we need to let ourselves off the hook there a bit.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. We could go on talking about this. I think that you know, listening to journey talking about, you know, not being in control and her story about having to trust God in the midst of things. And then Kirsten, talking about forgiveness being at the centre of their house. I mean, that doesn't actually sound that easy to do, really, but it sounds ideal. But I'm like, and she made it. There's this phrase, the occasional arguments that her and John had in front of them.

Sally Burch

Yeah Occasional. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting, wasn't it about forgiveness, not easy to do. It really, really not easy to do. Forgiveness is one of those things, it's an actual decision that you have to make, sometimes daily. And we're going to be talking about this kind of over the next few weeks in in sort of other ways as well. But forgiveness is a really difficult thing, especially when someone is really hurt you. But modelling forgiveness to your children is really important. If you're someone I don't know anybody like this. But if you're someone that holds a grudge, you know, that can be tricky. And you need to kind of learn how to be sort of more forgiving, and how to kind of, yeah, say sorry, to your kids. That's so important, isn't it to model that?

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, I thought that was really good. I think the fact that we need to forgive but we also need to seek forgiveness is just, you know, we were all in that we're all in that sort of place in life. And we've all got to do both. And so I thought that was really great. And then Charlotte's comments about motherhood being an extreme roller coaster, white knuckle ride, I was like, ah, guys, there's actually an analogy I can understand that. That was fantastic. That's really helpful.

Sally Burch

Really good! Really practical and real. And that's kind of what Charlotte is. She just, yeah, she just really tells you how it is and encourages you that you're doing okay, because it is a roller coaster ride. I thought it was really interesting. That whole you know, lying awake worrying about your kids. You think that when they're grown and older, you won't have that, you know? You've already had a child go off to university, I'm facing my eldest going off at some point. And I'm thinking how am I going to cope with that? The only way I'm going to cope with that is by taking these worries to God because otherwise I am never going to sleep. I mean, it's Yeah, it's really really tough. Being a parent is tough!

Matt Edmundson

It is. But! and this is probably a good place to sort of draw the discussion to a conclusion. I like the thread which came through what everybody was saying was actually, the thing about faith and motherhood is you can trust God, you can trust God with your kids. It's not always easy. It's not always straightforward. But fundamentally, you can trust God with your kids. And you can trust God with yourself. In some respects, like you were saying, in terms of being a mum. He's gonna look out for you. He's gonna look out for your kids. That doesn't mean it's all gonna go right. But he somewhere is involved in the whole thing. Would that be fair?

Sally Burch

Absolutely. You know, I'd much rather be going through this with God's help than on my own. If you haven't got that, if you're not a Christian, and you don't feel that you can go to God with these things. And I just think, how do you manage? Because knowing that God is in it with me is is what kind of gets me through sometimes and as you rightly say, that doesn't mean everything goes right and well, and that you're happy with all the choices your children make, you have to trust. You know, you have to leave that don't you when they become adults, but knowing that you can go to God with these worries and for comfort, and it's just so, so helpful. So important.

Matt Edmundson

Brilliant. So thanks again. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks, Claire. Thanks, Charlotte. And thanks Kirsten, fantastic! I feel like we could talk about this for many more hours.