Mother's Day Monologues

Rev. Marianne C. Paul has written a set of five monologues based on the experiences of five different mothers in Scripture:  Eve, Sarah, Moses’ mother, the Pharaoh’s daughter, and Mary (the mother of Jesus). Because of their length, I’ve only included the first two here.  If you’d like the complete set, send Marianne an email, and she'll forward the whole set to you: mariannethesecond@gmail.com 

Eve

You tell me.  Would you really want to live in Paradise?  Would you embrace a world where no one dies…. If it meant that no one would ever be born?

Life—as you know it—is ever changing.  Children become adults, maybe parents, and they grow old; and, in the natural order of things, they die.

Imagine a world with no children:  no children for parents to scold; no children for grandparents to spoil.  That was paradise.

Even the pain of child birth vibrated through me… I was alive.  And the joy of holding that first child: exquisite!  The delight of that baby far outweighed the pain of birth.  Satan did not lie.

Ah… but neither did he tell all the truth.  There are many kinds of pain and not all are physical.  Worse, some are preventable.  How many times over the years did I wonder what could…should …I have done differently?  That question.  That question is the child of free will; unknown in paradise.

There are so many questions unknown in paradise.  Can the joy of holding your firstborn son be extinguished when he kills his brother?  That one day I lost two sons and was left with only questions that even I cannot answer.

Motherhood is risky business.  But that did not stop me from having another child.


Sarah

In all my long years this much I have learned: Laughter will shatter even the deepest darkness.  When I was young and considered beautiful, the Lord made a promise as welcome as a well in a desert flowing with water cold and clear.  Your descendents will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Could there be an immortality any greater than that?

At first the promise burned brightly in our hearts.  We were busy making baby after baby, eager to do our part.  But, the babies never came.  Our cattle multiplied beyond belief and we were rich beside our neighbors.  But not even one child stirred to life within me: not a son not a daughter.

Following the advice of well meaning friends and aunts who thought they could understand my sorrow, I offered up my maid to create a child.  And to Abraham’s joy a son was born.  Ishmael.  With him my darkness intensified.  I had failed.   Had the Lord of Abram told a lie?  Perhaps he had never spoken.  Perhaps we had imagined the Promise.

It wasn’t until I was old and dried up and all hope was gone that the angel came with another message from the Lord.  God had not forgotten.  This was the year the baby would come.

The laughter came from deep within me.  The promise I had held and lost was renewed.  I laughed because I was happy.  I laughed because I was terrified.  I am not sure if I was more afraid of the promise failing again or being fulfilled.         

With that laughter I took a breath and then another, breathing in the air of angels.  Later holding that promised son in my wrinkled arms, I looked into his eyes.  There I saw the brightness of the stars and I knew that from this smallest of beginnings God’s promises could always be trusted.


— written by Rev. Marianne C. Paul.  Free for congregational use.  If you are interested in the other three monologues (Moses’ mother, the daughter of Pharaoh, and Mary), drop Marianne an email:  mariannethesecond@gmail.com and she'll get them to you. 

For other worship resources for Mother’s Day, click on Mother’s Day in the list of “Labels” at the lower right side of the page.