Who is the Perfect Mother?

This is one of the most beautiful tributes I have ever heard about Mothers. It was shared with Me on Mothers Day 2025, By Melody S.

Today is Mother’s Day — and while it’s a joyful day for many, I want to begin by saying something that often goes unsaid: I know this day can hurt.

It can hurt if you wanted children and didn’t get the chance.
It can hurt if you’ve lost a child.
It can hurt if your relationship with your own mother is strained.
It can hurt if you’re a mother who feels tired, overlooked, or unsure you’re doing enough.
It can even hurt if you’ve chosen not to have children, and yet still feel the weight of other people's expectations.

So, to everyone here — men and women, mothers and not — I want you to know his:
You matter. You are seen. And God is with you.

And Happy Mother’s Day — to every kind of woman who shows up with love in her heart, no matter what her story looks like.

Today, we celebrate mothers — but we also honor the women who longed to be mothers and never got the chance. The women who’ve lost children. The women who raised children who weren’t their own. The women who mother through mentorship, through prayer, through fierce friendship. And the women who quietly carry a nurturing spirit, even if the world never called them “Mom.”

Motherhood is not one narrow thing. It’s not just a biological role. It’s a reflection of God’s heart — and it shows up in so many forms.

And yet… on a day like today, even in the celebration, there can be a quiet pain. A loneliness that lingers, even in a room full of people. A deep ache of feeling unseen — like your love is always poured out but rarely poured into. Like you show up for everyone else, but no one quite shows up for you.

If that’s you today, I want you to hear this: God sees you. He sees the parts of your story no one claps for. He sees the love you give when no one returns it. He sees the tears you cry in the bathroom, the strength you summon when you’d rather hide, the way you keep moving forward with a cracked but steady heart.

You’re not alone in that kind of quiet strength. In fact—you’re in sacred company.

There are women in the scriptures who lived in that very space — who carried sorrow, invisibility, rejection, longing — and still found themselves held by God.

Let’s look at their stories.

Let’s go all the way back to the beginning — to Eve.

The first woman. The first wife. The first mother. The first to know what it’s like to walk with God… and then to feel the weight of separation.

Eve gets remembered for the fall — for the bite, the choice, the consequence. But what we sometimes forget is what came after. She still had to live. She still had to mother. She still had to show up.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to carry children after everything changed? To raise them outside of Eden, knowing the world would never be as gentle or perfect again? She bore sons — and then watched one take the life of the other. She experienced the deepest kind of grief a mother can know.


Eve was the first to bury a child…

She was also the first to learn that even when everything falls apart — God doesn’t leave.

He didn’t erase her story. He didn’t replace her. He covered her. And He stayed with her.

Eve’s life tells us something profound: You can be the first to mess up and still be loved. You can lose everything and still be used. You can feel like the story is over — and still find yourself in the very beginning of something God is writing.

To the woman who feels like she’s ruined something too big…
To the woman who feels like she has to keep moving even after unthinkable loss…
To the woman who carries shame, or silence, or sorrow…

Eve says: You’re not alone. And God still covers you.

Maybe today, you feel like Eve.

Maybe something in your life didn’t go the way you hoped — a relationship, a dream, a part of yourself you thought would look different by now. Maybe you carry the weight of a decision, or the ache of a loss you can’t fix.

Maybe you’re doing your best to show up in a world that feels harder than you ever imagined.

Can I just say — it’s okay to be honest about that?

We don’t always get the garden. Sometimes we get the wilderness.
But even there — even here — God still walks with us.

He doesn’t wait for perfection. He shows up in the middle of our mess, our motherhood, our mistakes, and says: I still choose you. I still cover you. I still love you.

You are seen. You are not forgotten. And you are not too far gone.

Let me introduce you to another sacred woman: Hagar.
She was a woman who didn’t choose her story.
She was used. Abused. Sent away—pregnant and alone—into the wilderness.
She was not the favored wife.
She was not the one with the blessing.
She was, in every way, overlooked.

She did what she was told, and when things got hard — when the woman she served turned on her, when jealousy and pain took over the house — Hagar was cast out. Pregnant. Alone. Abandoned in the desert.

In the middle of the desert, God met her.
And He didn’t just rescue her — He spoke to her. Gave her hope. Gave her a future. Called her by name. And in that moment, Hagar gave God a name too:

El Roi — “You are the God who sees me.”

That might be one of the most beautiful truths in the whole Bible — that a woman who felt used, unwanted, and invisible was the one to declare: God sees me.

He sees you, too.

He sees the woman who feels like an outsider in her own family.
He sees the one who was hurt by people she trusted.
He sees the mom who feels like she’s failing.
He sees the woman sitting quietly in church today, wondering if anyone knows how hard it was just to show up.

God sees you. And not just to observe — but to care. To intervene. To comfort. To guide you out of the desert.

And then there’s Mary.

The mother of Jesus. The one we call “blessed among women.”
But being blessed didn’t mean her life was easy.

Mary said yes to God — fully, humbly, bravely. But that yes came with whispers behind her back. Judgment. Confusion. A journey to Bethlehem on a donkey while heavily pregnant. Giving birth in a stable, laying her baby in a manger.

She raised the Son of God — while carrying the weight of knowing He belonged to the world. She watched Him perform miracles… and she also watched Him suffer. She was there at the cross. Silent. Steady. Surrendered.

Mary’s story reminds us that favor doesn’t always look like comfort. Sometimes it looks like courage. Like long nights. Like keeping things in your heart that no one else understands.

And yet — she was faithful. Present. Chosen.

You may not be raising the Savior of the world — but some days it might feel like you’re holding together your own little world. And no one sees it but God.

But just like Mary, your “yes” matters.

Your quiet strength, your daily obedience, your love that keeps showing up even when your heart breaks a little — it matters.

You don’t have to be loud to be powerful. You don’t have to be seen by the world to be favored by God.

Next, Rebekah.

Rebekah’s story started with promise. She was chosen — not just by a servant looking for a wife for Isaac, but by God. Her kindness, her generosity, her openness — it was all seen. She left everything familiar and stepped into the unknown, trusting that something greater was unfolding.

She became a wife. A mother. And like many of us, she carried both the joy and burden of raising children who were very different from each other.

She gave birth to Jacob and Esau — two sons who would wrestle not just each other, but their future.

And Rebekah, like so many mothers, tried to manage it all. She wanted to secure the blessing. She wanted to protect. She wanted things to turn out right.

But in doing so, she tried to take control. She manipulated. She deceived. And though the blessing passed — it came at a cost. Rebekah never saw Jacob again after he fled. The family splintered. And we don’t hear from her again.

Rebekah’s story is complicated. Beautiful. Painful. Real.

Because let’s be honest — motherhood isn’t clean or simple. We want what’s best. We try our hardest. We make mistakes. We carry regrets. And sometimes, we love so fiercely it scares us — and that fear can push us into striving instead of trusting.

But even in her failure, Rebekah’s story didn’t stop the promise of God. Grace still moved forward. The blessing still came. The lineage still led to Jesus.

And that’s the hope we hold too.

God doesn’t need us to be perfect moms. Or perfect women.
He just asks us to trust Him — even when the story twists. Even when we don’t get to see how it all works out.

Last- there are the mothers of the stripling warriors.

We don’t know their names. We don’t know their backstories. We don’t get a detailed biography.

But we know this: their sons went to war believing in the power of God — because their mothers taught them to believe.

When Helaman led those two thousand young men into battle, he described them as “exceedingly valiant for courage” — and then he said something that gives me chills every time:

“They had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.”
(Alma 56:47)

These mothers couldn’t fight beside their sons. They couldn’t shield them from every wound. But they had already done the deeper work: they planted faith, they modeled devotion, and they trusted that God would cover what they couldn’t control.

That’s the heart of a mother — not one who guarantees safety, but one who anchors her children in something stronger than the storm.

And that’s the heart of so many women here today.

You may not feel like you’re doing anything extraordinary.
You may think your words fall flat, your efforts go unseen, your prayers hit the ceiling.
But heaven is watching. Your faith is taking root.
And your children — your family — are being shaped by the way you quietly, steadily believe.

“I’ve told you about Eve, Hagar, Mary, and Rebekah… but let me tell you about another woman. Me.”

“My story isn’t wrapped in a bow either.”
There have been moments I’ve felt like Eve — like something fell apart and I had to keep moving anyway.
Moments I’ve felt like Hagar — unseen, misunderstood, carrying more than I knew how to handle.
Moments like Mary — where I said “yes” to something God asked of me, and it cost more than I expected.
And moments like Rebekah — where I tried to control the outcome, just because I loved so much and feared so deep.

I’ve known joy.
I’ve known heartbreak.
I’ve known what it’s like to be strong because you have to be, not because you feel strong.
I’ve known what it’s like to mother with a heart that’s both full and fragile.

And this is where I share my story—

Can I be honest with you?”
I didn’t know what to say here.
Because I don’t always feel like I know my story.

There are parts of it I’ve lived so fast, I never had time to name them.
Parts I’ve buried because they hurt.
Parts I’ve survived that still leave a mark.

I’ve had four beautiful children.
My last delivery didn’t go the way it was supposed to.
I had emergency hysterectomy that changed more than just my body—it changed how I saw myself.
There was grief in that. Loss. Confusion.
It’s strange to say, but it felt like something in me closed before I had the chance to say goodbye.

And still—I mother.
I show up. I try to carry love. I hold space. I try to be strong, even when I’m cracked in ways most people can’t see.

I also carry the ache of losing my brother.
His name was Jose. He was one of my favorite people.
When he died in 2021, it felt like the ground shifted under me.
Like part of my story got erased without warning.
I still miss him. I still talk to him. Because there are moments I just need to say his name and feel like someone’s listening.

So no, I don’t have a tidy testimony.
I don’t have a life that wraps up with a bow.
But I have a God who’s never left me in the middle of it.
Even when I’ve felt unseen. Even when I didn’t recognize myself.
He keeps showing up.

And if that’s you too—if your story feels scattered or silent or still unfinished—
I just want to say: you’re not behind.
You’re not broken.
You’re not forgotten.

You are seen.
You are carried.
And God still writes beautiful things with stories like ours.

But here’s the thing I keep learning, again and again:

God doesn’t just show up in the big, beautiful parts of the story. He shows up in the in-between.
In the grief.
In the guilt.
In the grocery-store crying fits and the midnight prayers and the moments where you wonder if anything you’re doing actually matters.

And somehow—He keeps saying:
“I see you. I’m not done with you. I still choose you.”

So wherever you find yourself today…
In joy or in grief.
In clarity or in confusion.
Whether you feel strong or completely undone—
There is space for you here. And there is grace for you here.

You are part of a long, beautiful line of women—
Eve, who kept going after everything changed.
Hagar, who discovered that God sees her.
Mary, who carried the weight of obedience and wonder.
Rebekah, who loved fiercely and still fell short.

And women like you.
Women like me.

Mothers in the fullest sense of the word.
Women who pour out love, who nurture life, who carry burdens, who walk through pain,
And who are still—still—held by a God who doesn’t walk away.

So this Mother’s Day, whether your arms are full or aching…
May you know this:

You are not forgotten.
You are not alone.
And your story is not over.
God is still writing. And His hands are always kind.

Happy Mother’s Day.