Holding Joy and Sorrow In Motherhood

The crushing, the oil, and the beauty of motherhood.

Every year Mother’s Day brings about a level of despair not many can relate to. It’s another day on the calendar where my heart breaks, where deep despair creeps in alongside the joy I often times feel forced to pretend I have.

You cry for the one you lost while in the same breath you rejoice for the ones you’ve gotten to keep.

You feel the weight of what was taken every time someone asks how many kids you have, especially on days where you’re celebrated for such an accomplishment.

Mother’s Day is a day where my soul feels the tension of heaven and earth. Of what is and what is to come. The tension of hurting with the hope of heaven.

If I’m really honest, there’s a part of me that still hates this day. There are times where it feels like it’s a day for me to put on my mask and my armor and pretend to be fine for everyone else. I take the flowers and the card with a fake smile so that my girls don’t feel let down. But inside there’s a crushing happening beneath the surface.

But there is a sacred fragrance that rises from lives that have learned to hold both bitter and sweet in the same hands.

In Scripture, oil and incense were often made from a blending of spices, some sweet, some bitter, crushed together to create an offering of fragrance unto the Lord. In many ways, grief and gratitude work the same within us. The sweetness of what we have been given and the bitterness of what we have lost become intertwined, and somehow, through surrender, they rise before God together.

Mother’s Day can feel like that mixture for many of us. I celebrate the children I get to hold, laugh with, and mother every day, while also carrying the ache of the child I no longer hold in my arms. Joy and sorrow do not cancel each other out; they coexist. One does not diminish the other. Love makes room for both.

There is something deeply holy about refusing to numb either side of the story. To rejoice with genuine gratitude while also allowing grief to speak honestly is not weakness, it is worship.

It is the offering of a heart that has been broken open and still chooses to love.

And perhaps this is part of what becomes a fragrance to the Lord: not polished perfection or easy celebration, but the surrendered mixture of bitter and sweet, poured out before Him with honesty, trust, and devotion.

There is a reason oil in Scripture was never produced casually, it always came through crushing.

Olives had to be pressed for the oil to flow. The crushing was not evidence that the olive had lost its value; it was the very process that revealed what had been hidden within it all along. 

In the same way, suffering has a way of pressing the deepest places of the human heart, bringing forth something costly, pure, and surrendered before the Lord.

Grief has felt like that for me at times. The loss, the longing, the tension of holding celebration and sorrow in the same breath, it has all carried its own kind of crushing. And yet, somehow, in the hands of God, even the crushing has produced oil. 

A deeper tenderness.

A greater dependence on Him.

A compassion for others I may never have known otherwise.

An intimacy with His presence that only suffering can sometimes uncover.

I would never call the pain good. But I have seen how the Lord can draw near within it, gently transforming what was broken into something that carries the fragrance of heaven.

Perhaps that is part of the mystery of motherhood too, the way love stretches us, empties us, refines us, and teaches us how to pour ourselves out for others. And for those of us who carry grief alongside that love, we can trust that the crushing is not wasted. God sees every tear, every ache, every quiet surrender. And from places that felt broken beyond repair, He is still able to produce oil.

To every kind of mother, I honor you.

To the mothers raising children with exhausted hands and full hearts. To the spiritual mothers nurturing souls through prayer, wisdom, and presence. To the women longing and believing for a child of their own. To the mothers who carry the ache of miscarriage, infertility, or the loss of a child. To the women holding memories instead of hands today. To those celebrating while simultaneously grieving. To those carrying quiet stories no one else fully sees.

I honor all of it.

Motherhood is far deeper than a single experience; it is love poured out, sacrifice embraced, and hearts stretched wide through joy and sorrow alike. And for many of us, this day is not simple. It is layered. Tender. Holy in its own way.

As believers, we live within the tension of the eternal and the now. We hold the hope of heaven, where every loss will be restored and every tear wiped away, while also carrying the very real and raw emotions of this present moment.

Faith does not require us to deny our grief. And grief does not diminish our faith. The Lord is present with us in both.

So today, whether your heart feels full, broken, hopeful, weary, grateful, or somewhere in between, may you know this: 

God sees you tenderly. He honors your story. He is near to your sorrow and present in your joy.

And somehow, in the mystery of His goodness, He continues to meet us in the tension, turning even the bitter and sweet into a fragrance that rises before Him.

If this message resonates with you, you are not alone in what you are carrying.

This is the first time I am announcing something new that I have carried in my heart for the past three year. The Inner Room coaching space.

The Inner Room was created as a sacred space for women who are navigating grief, identity, disappointment, and the deep questions that often surface in seasons of loss and longing. It is a place where you don’t have to rush your healing or hide your story, where both your faith and your feelings are welcomed before the Lord.

Through coaching, teaching, and spiritual formation, The Inner Room exists to help you reconnect with God in the places that feel tender, rebuild a sense of identity rooted in Christ, and learn how to hold your life with Him in honesty and hope.

If you find yourself in the tension described in these words, between joy and sorrow, faith and lament, gratitude and grief, I want to personally invite you to come closer. There is space for you here.

Click Here for more info!