Sorrowful Joy
A Mother's Day Devotional for the Woman Still Waiting
“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard
that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.”
John 11:5–6
Mother’s Day can be one of the hardest Sundays of the year. The recognition for women who have what you are still waiting for and the joy around you is real, even as the ache inside you is just as real.
This devotional does not ask you to pretend the ache isn’t there. It asks something harder and something kinder: to sit with Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus, and to learn what it means to grieve without losing hope, to celebrate others without betraying your longing, and to let Jesus meet you exactly where you are.
Maybe it’s the ache of desiring motherhood with no sign of a date in sight. Maybe your mother-daughter relationship is nothing but hurt. Maybe you’re grieving the loss of a mother by death, illness, or a broken relationship. Today can hold so much emotion. And John 11 reminds us that Jesus waited outside the city, letting Martha and Mary come to Him in their anger, in their tears and He received them both. He will receive you too.
The story begins not with resurrection but with loss. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, the one Jesus loved fell ill. They sent word to Jesus. And Jesus, remarkably, stayed where He was for two more days (v. 6).
By the time He arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. The sisters were deep in grief. The community was mourning. The body was decaying. There is no softening it: their brother was dead.
This is where the story begins for you too. Not at the miracle. Not at the rolled-away stone. But here, where the thing you have prayed for has not come, where the door you have knocked on has not opened, where Mother’s Day can feel like standing outside a celebration you were not invited to.
Mary and Martha believed in Jesus. They had watched Him perform miracles. And still Lazarus died. Believing does not guarantee that the thing you love will come easily, or come at all in the form you imagined. Grieving over your “Lazarus” does not signal a lack of faith.
So, what is the longing in your life that feels like it has been in the tomb too long?
When Jesus finally arrived, John 11:20 tells us that Martha went out to meet Him. Mary stayed in the house. Jesus waited. He remained outside the village until they came to Him.
This is not a picture of a distant God. It is a picture of a God who honors the space of your grief, one who does not force Himself into rooms you have not yet opened. He is present, patient, and ready.
Martha came first, and she came with a complaint. “Lord, if you had been here” (v. 21). She was not pretending while expressing her feelings. And Jesus did not rebuke her. He engaged her theology, asked what she believed, and received her grief with full attention.
Then Mary came. She fell at His feet, weeping. She said the same words: “If you had been here.” Jesus was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled (v. 33). He did not explain. He did not correct her. He asked where they had laid him. And then, in the shortest verse in all of Scripture:
“Jesus wept.” — John 11:35
He knew what was about to happen. He knew the resurrection was minutes away. And He wept anyway because the grief of the people He loved moved Him, even knowing the ending. Your sorrow is an invitation to the Man of Sorrows, who is acquainted with grief.
Notice that both women came to Him differently: Martha standing, questioning; Mary at His feet, weeping. Jesus received them both. There is no right way to bring your grief to God. He is not waiting for you to arrive composed or resolved. He is simply waiting for you to come.
Jesus came to the tomb and said: “Take away the stone.”
Martha protested, practically, honestly, and correctly by every earthly measure: “Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” She had accepted the loss as final. And Jesus looked at her and said:
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” — John 11:40
The stone you cannot move does not determine the ending of your story.
This is the word for you on a hard Mother’s Day: the stone is real. The longing is real. The years of waiting are real. You are not imagining it, and you are not being dramatic. You do not know what God is about to do. Mary and Martha could not have known, standing at that sealed tomb, that in the next few moments everything they had accepted as permanent would be undone. They were grieving and moving toward acceptance. And then Lazarus walked out in his grave clothes.
The Bible does not promise that every longing will be fulfilled in this life. But it does promise this: the ache you carry today does not write the final chapter of your story. You are standing at a sealed tomb with the Resurrection Himself beside you.
Celebrating a mother in your life is not a betrayal of your longing. Honoring the women who have what you are waiting for is not a concession that your hope is foolish. It is one of the most quietly courageous things a woman can do, to stand at the seemingly sealed tomb of her own longing, and still turn toward someone else with genuine love.
Sorrow and joy are not rivals. They are companions in the same faithful heart.
The Apostle Paul named this precisely: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Not sorrowful then rejoicing, as though the grief must clear before the joy can come. Both held together, at the same time. This is not emotional contradiction, it is spiritual maturity. It is what it looks like to trust God in the dark while still loving the people He has placed in the light around you.
You are allowed to feel both today. You do not have to perform happiness you do not have. You do not have to suppress the ache to be a good sister, a good friend, a good daughter. You can bring all of it to the threshold where Jesus is waiting, and He will receive all of it.
REFLECTION
Is there a mother in your life you can honor today, genuinely, even while you carry your own grief?
What would it look like to hold both sorrow and joy today, rather than choosing one?
What stones have you accepted as permanent? Where have you confused accepting reality with accepting the final word?
What would it mean today, not someday, but today, to trust the One standing beside you more than the stone in front of you?
Lord Jesus,
You did not rush past grief to get to the miracle.
You let Mary and Martha come to You in their own time,
in their own way, with their own words and You received them both.
Today we come to You with the aches we have carried longer than expected.
I pray for those women longing for a child, for a family they can call their own.
The stone is still there and we cannot pretend the situation doesn’t smell of decay.
But we also acknowledge and come to You believing that You are the Resurrection and the Life.
That our grief is not dismissed by You.
That You weep with us and still hold the stone we cannot move.
Give us grace today to honor the mothers around us without betraying the longing within us.
Give us eyes that can see their joy as a gift rather than a reminder of what we do not have.
And in the quiet of this day, let me hear You say what You said to Martha:
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
I believe. Help my unbelief.
Amen.
This spoke volumes today. Your sorrow is an invitation to the Man of Sorrows, who is acquainted with grief. I’m grateful that He knows and understands our sorrows.