One of the saddest statements in all the Bible was spoken to Mary by Simeon when he said in Luke 2:35, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.”

Mother’s Day ought to be a happy day. Clearly it is a happy day for florists, greeting card companies, telephone providers, and restaurants. But, Mother’s Day can be a particularly sad and painful day for many. Some people no longer have their mothers. Some people just lost their mom. Some widowers for the first time are trying to figure out how to celebrate this day for the first time in decades without his wife being there. There are mothers today, trying to smile when their heart is just broke because their child is deathly ill, or they just lost a child. I think of the mother of Ambrose Manye, a 28-year-old medical student in Chicago who just disappeared on the 22nd of April. Or, what about the mother of Donnell Phelps, who was just murdered at Fort Valley State University because he was standing up for some older teenage girls who were being harassed and groped outside a restaurant. Or what about the poor mother of the 11-year-old Navajo girl named Ashlynne Mike, who had a stranger lure her into a van before he beat her to death with a crowbar.

Jesus taught in Matthew 5:45 that the sun shines on both the good and evil, and the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And while some events are planned by an Almighty God, Jer. 1:5; Gal. 1:15. There’s a certain randomness within the human experience that authenticates faith. And how is that? Well, if going to worship, and living a Christian life was an automatic exemption from suffering, everyone would be a believer. But, we know that convenient faith for selfish reasons is profitless and a waste of time.  The point is bad things happen to good people, and because of that, Mother’s Day to some is not always a time of joy.

We know all things work together for good to them that love the Lord, Romans 8:28. And Paul is not teaching that everything that happens in life will be good. Nor, is Paul teaching that everything that happens in life is God’s will. But, Paul does teach that there is nothing that happens that is beyond God’s ability to turn it into a spiritual triumph of some kind.

Simon told Mary that bad things would happen to her son, so bad, her heart would be pierced. And indeed at the end of the Gospel, she is standing at her son’s cross, weeping, trying to make sense of what was happening to Him.

I hope today; you have a great Mother’s Day. I hope your day is filled with joy, laughter, fellowship and true worship to God. But, I also, would ask, that you take time out today and weep with those who are weeping, Romans 12:15. Pray for those who are suffering. And if you know someone today who is hurting, and you know good and well Mother’s Day 2016 is tearing them up, please, why not take a few minutes and reach out to them and tell them, “I love you.”