The Mom heart

 When our children are babies we envision them gaining independence and going to school. Then we imagine their driving, moving out, etc. We think that will bring us a sense of completion and to a degree, it does, but much like a carrot dangling in front of a horse, your role as concerned mother never ends. It changes, but never ends.

We worry about how they’re really doing, how they feel, about their spiritual lives, about their spouses and their children. We never stop thinking and praying. It’s relentless.

I was today years old when I realized, there’s a mother in the Bible who can relate to all of us mothers, especially moms of adult children. It’s a mother you typically associate with a glow, holding a baby under twinkling stars or having a direct conversation with her son, or sadly grieving in horror at his death.

You know her: Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. 

We are familiar with her perfect son. We know Him, we love Him, we trust Him for our salvation, but there were those very close to Jesus and Mary that did not, until later that is…

Imagine the situation: you talked to the angels, you saw the miracles, you heard the prophecies spoken over him in the temple. Years later you welcome other children into your family, they grow up just knowing Jesus, the older brother. The perfect one. The one whose shadow they walked in. They would not believe he was incarnate God until his resurrection. They actually scoffed at him when he began his ministry.

“Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.”

‭‭Mark‬ ‭6‬:‭4‬ ‭

We aren’t given too many details but it seems his brothers didn’t like his new ministry.

Imagine Mary’s heart. Her children, all of them were the loves of her life and when there’s discord in a family, a mother’s heart breaks, but this discord had eternal consequences.

She must have cried and prayed often for the other grown children to believe. 

If you know your Bible, you know her prayers were answered. James and Jude wrote two of the most spiritually challenging books in the New Testament. The book of Jude begins with the words, “This letter is from Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and a brother of James…” James also begins his book by saying he’s a slave of Jesus.

Both men referred to themselves as a slave of Christ. Jude included “and a brother to James”. He wouldn’t even call himself the brother of Jesus because he was a new man who knew the Holy God. I imagine he was flat on his face before God in prayer. He never again saw Jesus as older brother but as savior and Lord.

Can you imagine Mary? I’m not sure how long she lived, but I have a feeling it was long enough to see the change she’d prayed for, maybe for years.

If Mary, the mother of Jesus experienced parenting adult children, especially those who are in spiritual distress and don’t believe in the Jesus who is right in their midst!  Don’t you know that God understands your heartache for your children?

More importantly, God knows the pain of broken relationships with his children. Those who are away or who haven’t come to him in the first place. He loves so deeply we can’t put it into words, but He did put it in one earthly example that helps us all understand supernatural love: the heart of a mother.

Don’t give up sweet, praying mothers! Your prayers change eternal lives.

-Melissa Pyle

8-13-2026