When I was 21, I remember sitting in a Mother’s Day church service. I had cancer at the time and wondered if I would ever become a mother, or even live until next year’s Mother’s Day. The vicar asked all the children to hand bunches of daffodils out to the women in the congregation, explaining that you didn’t have to be a mother to play an important motherly role in a child’s life.

A little five-year-old girl I knew climbed onto my lap, handed me a bunch of flowers, and said, “You’re my favourite church mummy.” That moment was deeply significant to me. Years later, as a mother, it continues to shape the way I parent. This Mother’s Day I will be sat in church with my husband and our two children who have been part of our lives for four and a half years.

As an adoptive family, Mother’s Day brings a mix of emotions.

Each year, I wake up thinking about my children’s birth mother and wondering how she feels on this day. I thank God for the woman who gave me the incredible gift of these children, and I pray for her often.

Some years, my children want to talk about their birth mum on Mother’s Day, and so we do. Other years, they don’t– they just want to celebrate me. Like so much of parenting, I’ve learned to go with the flow.

In our family, we openly acknowledge that adoption is ‘second best’ because the best-case scenario would have been for my children’s birth family to be able to care for them. But we make the best of ‘second best’. I don’t mind sharing the title of mum with another; I feel so grateful for the blessing of motherhood.

On Mother’s Day we celebrate all the women who have played a motherly role in our children’s lives. When they first came to us, we baptised our children and they chose their own godparents from among mine and my husband’s friends. We had to cap them in the end because they had so many amazing supportive people to choose from, including god-grandparents! This sense of community is something I treasure deeply. Mother’s Day is also a day for celebrating these supportive women in their lives, and my children always send a card to their godmothers and grandmothers.

Since I was young, adoption was something that I felt God was strongly calling me to, and on our first date my husband and I discussed this passion that we shared. Mother’s Day is a time for me to reflect with God on this journey. Each year I re-commit myself to this calling on my life, through the ups and downs and challenges that it can bring.

Now, as I train to become a Church of England vicar, I often preach on Mother’s Day, a day which can bring mixed emotions for many of us. I love sharing the story of that church service when I was 21, and the little girl who made me feel seen and valued. I lost touch with her family, but a decade later, I ran into them in a supermarket. I took the opportunity to tell her mum just how much that moment had meant to me and how I still think about it often.

This Mother’s Day, how can you celebrate the women in your church who play a motherly role in your life or in the lives of your children? How can we make them feel seen, valued, and loved – just as that five-year-old did for me?