We do ourselves a grave disservice by only celebrating the women who hold the title of “mother” on Mother’s Day. Since we focus in on only those women who have given birth to us we miss out on the opportunity to identify all the women who function as mothers in our lives. The truth is, for some of us, Mother’s Day is not a pleasant holiday.

Whether it’s dysfunction, abuse, abandonment, or worse — there don’t seem to be any cards on the shelf that quite express how you might feel if your mom’s love was more hindering than nurturing. Not to mention all the women who have tried and failed to become natural mothers, the people that are reminded of their mothers who are no longer with them, and all the single women who have no aspirations to be mothers but still want to experience the honor of a day set aside just for them. This Sunday morning many of these women will hear the message that they should “Honor their mother” because the Good Book told them so. But would it surprise you to know that the language of the Bible sees motherhood a bit differently than we do?