Thank You to My Spiritual “Mom”

by Amy Hall on May 8, 2022

A few months ago, my son was explaining boundaries to me after witnessing a sports mom treat me (her child’s coach) harshly after practice. I told my child he sounded just like my spiritual mom. He replied, “No, I don’t, mom! I sound like YOU!!” But my son was speaking the very things that my spiritual mom had spoken to me months prior that I later imparted to him. I couldn’t believe I actually sounded like my “mom”! I began seeing the many ways she has impacted my life even though she’s not the mom who birthed me.

As Mother’s Day approached, my heart flipped back and forth once again between joy and grief—joy for the way in which my spiritual mom is like a mom to me and grief for the way my mom who birthed me is unable to be there for me through her brokenness. In the joy, I celebrate my spiritual mom and am continually amazed at the beauty and growth that unfolds from this relationship. It’s a beauty that not only impacts me, but flows out into my family life and into the lives around me as I seek to care for others as she has cared for me.

To My Spiritual Mom:

Thank you for always being there—for walking alongside me through many blessings and challenges of life, for loving me unconditionally even when I didn’t know how to receive your love until last year, for answering all the questions from life hacks to parenting to weird body stuff that comes with getting older to everything else in between.

Thank you for consistently showing me what it means to be a disciple of Christ in such a way that drew me back to Him by your example, especially as I wrestled through deconstruction and wasn’t sure who or what to believe. Thank you for slowly introducing me to the idea that healing is possible. No matter how messy and seemingly insurmountable the healing journey got, you kept showing up with more love, life truth, and unwavering Biblical truth. I had no idea just how much transformation would be in store for each of us and how life-changing the ripple effects of this transformation would be as we took steps to live from a healthier and more authentic place with others, with God, and with ourselves.

You didn’t birth me, but you’ve helped me grow up. And because of that, you helped me see and end some unhealthy generational cycles that were ripe with legalism. You continually help me find courage as I create new boundaries and develop new generational patterns birthed out of love and freedom so my son can know something different, something real. Pieces of you are now a part of him as he is also learning a different way that he will pass on to his own family one day. Often, I catch myself passing along spiritual insights you’ve shared with me to women who are wrestling with the same things I did. Your reflections encourage them on their journeys as they once encouraged me. You have given me so much to give to others.

You didn’t have to do any of the things you have done over the past 11 years, but you did--that’s what a mom does. What we share today is a testimony of how a simple mentoring relationship that was birthed at a ladies retreat evolved over the years into this beautiful relationship that doesn’t just impact one person. It impacts families, churches, ministries, communities, and future generations. It’s a testimony to all the things you teach other women through your leadership (like, what you’re sharing with them is real because this is who you are behind-the-scenes…even on the phone late at night).

It’s also a testimony of how God can redeem painful Mother’s Days. While Mother’s Day offers a reminder of what isn’t with my mom, God has given me safe, healthy relationships with you and other strong, godly women who nurture my wounded places to a place of health (a Joel 2:25 moment).

Finally, it’s a testimony to how God continues to keep the promises He gave me when I was a lonely teenager: “God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains...” Ps 68:6.

God’s plan was to set me in your family so I could learn how to finally be free and to have a safe place to learn how to live into the love and freedom of God, so I can invite others into His love and freedom, too.

So, all of that to say…Happy Mother’s Day to my spiritual mom…and to all the other “moms” who are pouring into women’s lives, because this is real Kingdom work—the kind that transforms communities and cultures—one relationship and one woman at a time!