Coming Home: Happy Mothers Day

What happens when you finally come home—not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually?

In this heartfelt solo episode of Unrelated Sisters: Truth & Grace Conversation, Shannon reflects on returning to her home store after weeks away helping other locations and how an ordinary drive to work suddenly became deeply spiritual.

Through honest storytelling and biblical truth, this episode weaves together the story of the Prodigal Son, the prayers of a mother, the pride of watching a son grow, and the quiet strength of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

This conversation is for anyone who has ever:

•  Felt lost and found again 
•  Been carried by someone else’s prayers 
•  Returned to a place that suddenly feels different 
•  Wondered if their life touched others along the journey 
•  Needed the reminder that home is sometimes where God restores us 

This episode is full of grace, gratitude, healing, motherhood, redemption, and the faithful love of Jesus.

Luke 15:20

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him…”
James 5:16
“The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
Zephaniah 3:17
“He will rejoice over you with gladness…”
John 19:25
“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother…”
Psalm 23:6
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”

 PRAYER 

Jesus…
Thank You for being the kind of Father who welcomes us home.
Thank You for every prayer prayed over us when we didn’t even know we needed it.
Thank You for mothers who stayed faithful.
 For children who teach us grace.
 For ordinary mornings that become holy moments.
Lord, help us recognize Your presence in the everyday.
Heal the parts of us that still feel distant.
 Restore peace to weary hearts.
 And remind us that no matter how far we’ve wandered emotionally, spiritually, or mentally…
Home is always found in You.
And God…
 thank You for never stopping Your pursuit of us.
Amen.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for this day. Thank you for your mercy, your blessings, and your grace, and thank you for the moments of every day that we not always notice, but that are there, Lord Jesus. We want to thank you for our mothers today, Lord Jesus, as it's Mother's Day. We want to thank you for their prayers, their worries, their growth, and their patience with us, Lord Jesus. As we were little till as we were grown. As a mother, you never stop. You never stop loving your children, Lord Jesus, just as you have never stopped loving us. We want to praise you today. And we want to thank you, Lord Jesus. And we hope that the words that you have given us, Lord Jesus, touches someone in the right places today, Lord Jesus, and that they know that they are not alone and that they are loved no matter where they are in life. Lord Jesus, we just want to thank you for your grace. And we want to thank you for this opportunity and for the podcast that you have given us to share. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you and welcome back to Unrelated Sisters Truth and Grace Conversation. I'm Shannon, and today I just kind of want to talk about kind of what me and Deb talked about last week. I just kind of want to give you an update. I kind of want to lead you to where God led me this week. Um, just want to talk a little bit through it. Um, I want to recognize our mamas today. Happy Mother's Day to all our mothers that are listening, whether you're an animal mom or a children mom or you're just a mom mom. We just want to know that you are loved and that we recognize you today and that we love you today. But I want to talk about the other morning. So I get up Friday morning and it feels different, like the whole morning's different. But nothing happened, nothing major. I went to bed on time the night before. I slept fairly well through the night. Um, but the alarm went off just like normal, and I got up. I didn't hit snooze five or six times. I just got up. I started getting ready for work, but this morning I didn't hesitate to get out of the bed. I didn't dread putting my feet on the floor. I just got up. And that might not sound very important to everyone else, but with the way I've been feeling the last month, that was pretty important to me. I felt like there was a a chip in my step. There was a a new refreshing step. You know, because lately everything's been feeling very heavy for me, and I don't know how and why. I didn't understand. But, you know, my routines have been messed up. I've been traveling, helping out with other stores, which means other emotions, other chaos, other other than what I'm used to. Uh, I've been living out of a suitcase, staying in hotels. But I keep I kept showing up because that's what I'm supposed to do. Right? And this morning, as I was driving to work, everything kind of looked different. The road looked familiar, the trees looked different, they looked brighter. The sky felt softer somehow. It was just this pretty baby blue with soft, white, fluffy clouds in it. Because for the first time in weeks, I was driving home. And not to my home home. I had been at home the night before, not to my house, but to my store, to my what I'm familiar with, you know, to my people, to my routines, to where I make the decisions, to where I'm respected and I'm loved. And as I drove, God started speaking to me through memories. I started thinking about the prodigal son and how he had how he felt when he returned home. And then I thought about my own story, how I felt when I returned home after being the prodigal daughter. And then I thought about my mother and how much she had gone through before I decided to come home. And then I thought about my son, the precious gift that God gave me to help me to return home. And then I thought about Mary, Jesus' mother, and the strength that every mother needs to understand from her. And somehow, all those thoughts connected into one truth, that there is something sacred about coming home. In Luke 15, 20. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. I started thinking about the prodigal son, not the rebellion part, not the mistakes that he made, but the walk home. Can you imagine that walk? The shame, the uncertainty, the replaying of every bad decision. And then the enemy whispers, will they accept you? Will things ever feel normal again? Do you deserve to go back home? And as I as I thought about that, I thought about when I finally decided to pack my bags and call someone to come and get me. The January before Dylan was born. I uh finally packed what little bit of stuff I owned and what little bit of stuff had been given to me for Dylan. And I called a friend who is uh Julie, who is no longer with us, but was a wonderful friend and a great mother. I called her up, hadn't talked to her in months. Um, and I told her, I said, I need to go home. Can you come get me? And she said, I'll be there in a minute. And she hopped in the car. She, her and her husband, they called his brother and they pulled up and they were ready to load up everything that was in the house to bring me home for I could be safe. You know, and I think about that, and I think about how my mama reacted to it. And then I remember the prodigal son. Before the son could even fully apologize, the father ran to him and loved on him. And that part gets me every time because my mama did the same. She never questioned what I'd done, she never threw it back in my face. She was just happy that I'd come home. In religion, it says, clean yourself up first. But Jesus says, Come home, come as you are. And as I drove this morning, I realized something. Sometimes we think coming home only applies to people far from God, only people that have lost their way. But there are seasons where believers feel disconnected too, not lost forever, just weary, distracted, drained. I think that's where I've been. I've just been, ugh. And maybe these seasons, maybe this season for me was less about leaving God and more about realizing how much peace there is when you return to the places where your soul can breathe again, where you can be happy, where you don't have to be on guard. You know, being on guard for me triggers, triggers some emotions inside of me. And then I started thinking about my own life. You know, I started thinking about all the years that my mother prayed for me. She had to have. Somebody was praying for me. Somebody was praying for me hard. She prayed when she didn't know where I was. She prayed when she didn't know if I was safe. She prayed when she probably cried herself to sleep. She had to have prayed a lot. There was many, many situations that I had put myself in that I now that I'm clean and I'm sober, and my brain thinks logically for the most part. Let's not pretend, right? Um, there's situations I don't know how I got out of them. I don't know how I walked out unscathed, unhurt, unemotionally disturbed. I don't know how I walked out. I really don't. And now as a grown woman, I look at things differently, I see it differently, I see those times differently. Because there's something about becoming older that makes you realize somebody carried you spiritually when you could not carry yourself. And so if right now you're lost, if right now you're confused, if right now you are searching for something, somebody, someone, somewhere is praying to God for you. In James 5:16, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. I say that one more time. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. I think about how many prayers covered me before I ever understood grace, before I ever thought I could forgive myself, before I ever thought anyone could forgive me. How many times God protected me when I didn't deserve protection? How many times my mother probably stood between me and destruction through prayer alone? And maybe someone listening today needs to hear this. If you're praying, don't stop. If you're praying for your children, don't stop. If you're covering your children in prayer, don't stop. Whether they're two days old or they're 24 years old, pray for your children. You know, don't stop praying for your children, even when they look far away, even when they don't feel like you'll ever reach them, even when they act unreachable, even when they don't answer your calls or your texts or anything. Continue to pray. God knows where they are. The prodigal son still knew where home was, and so did I. And sometimes the prayers of a mother become the road signs back to God, and sometimes the prayers of a mother just bring you home, and bringing you home leads you to God. And then I thought about my son. You know, I've told the story to my son several times. He knows that I was a drug addict, he knows that the moment I found out I was pregnant, that I stopped getting high, he knows that I truly believe that God sent him to me to save me and to put me, take me home so that I could get better and so that I could lead and end up where I am today. And he knows that. But I think about my son and I wonder, does he know how proud I am of him? How I don't expect him to be perfect because life hasn't always been easy for us, because growth is beautiful to witness and to watch him grow into the young man that he has become, the mature and grown man that he has become makes me very happy in my heart, makes me very happy in my soul. And suddenly I understood something deeper about God. Maybe this is how he sees us, his children, he considers us his children, everyone on earth, not constantly disappointed in us, not constantly frustrated with us, but watching us grow, watching us mature as children of God, of daughters of God, of daughters of the king, watching us come back home and watching us try again. In Zephaniah 3.17, it says, He will rejoice over you with gladness, just as your mother rejoices over you with happiness. As parents, we don't expect perfection from our children every day, we just want a relationship, and maybe we're projected, we've projected human pressures onto God for way too long. Maybe God isn't standing over us saying, Why aren't you better yet? Maybe he's saying, Look how far you have come, look at what you have accomplished. One minute, one hour, one day at a time. And then I thought about Mary and the strength of a mother. And honestly, I don't think we talk about how strong she really was. Mary watched Jesus be misunderstood, rejected, mocked, then crucified. And I, as a mother, want to be a mama bear, right? Like, if that was my son, I would want to step in and I would want to protect him. But she stayed, she stayed through it all and stood beside him. In John 19, 25, near the cross of Jesus stood his mother. You know that verse is very short, but it's very powerful too. She stayed near the cross. Can you imagine the pain of watching your child suffer and not being able to stop it? You know, that makes me think of the mothers who have children in Achoa. And at work, we're about to start our campaign where we raise money for the Children's Hospital of Atlanta. And it's very important that we cover them and we help those mothers be able to stay with their children and stand by their children and hold their children's hands during every procedure and during every thought and every doctor's conversation. And pray and give them strength. You know, Mary teaches us something very, very important. Strength isn't is not always loud, it's not always screaming from the top of your lungs. Sometimes strength is staying faithful while your heart is breaking. You can still pray even though your heart is breaking. You can still stand by them even though your heart is breaking. Jesus stood by me, and so did my mother. And I think about mothers everywhere carrying silent burdens, praying silent prayers, holding families together quietly. God sees that and so do we. God honors that and so do we. So coming home, maybe coming home isn't always physical. Maybe it's not packing your bags to move back home to your mama. Maybe it's not going home to the neighborhood you grew up in. Sometimes coming home means returning to your peace, returning to gratitude, returning to yourself, the one that you love, and returning to Jesus. This morning reminded me that God can speak through ordinary moments. The moments that we look over and the moments we should pay more attention to. You know, a simple drive to work, a familiar road, a quiet thought, and suddenly your soul realizes I made it through something. I made it through a season. I made it through a season of lost, of disconnect, of ugh, which is how I've been feeling. In Psalms 23:6, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And maybe that's the message today. You survived seasons you thought would break you, you thought you could never survive, and now you're coming home, and that's a good thing. When you come home, it's not always perfect. Every day isn't always stars and butterflies, but when you pray to God, you learned how to manage through God, and that makes every day sunshine, makes every chaotic season, makes everything in life full of sun rays. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for being the kind of Father who welcomes us home. Thank you for every prayer prayed over us when we didn't even know we needed it, even when we didn't know we were lost. Thank you for mothers who stayed faithful and for mothers who are staying faithful today. Please give them the strength to continue to pray for their prodigal son or daughter, Lord Jesus. Let them know that they are not alone in this war and they are not alone in this battle, and that we are praying for them, Lord Jesus. For children who teach us grace, Lord Jesus, please, please continue to give us those moments. And for ordinary mornings that become holy moments, give us the eyes to see those holy moments, those ordinary moments, mornings, Lord Jesus, and those holy moments that you give us every day. Give us the heart to see the grace that you share with us every moment of our day. Lord, help us recognize your presence in the everyday, in the small moments, not in the big grand ones, Lord Jesus. Heal the parts of us that still feel distant, restore peace to the weary hearts, and remind us that no matter how far we've wandered emotionally, spiritually, or mentally, home is always found in you. And God, thank you for never stopping your pursuit of us. And thank you for our mothers. In Jesus' name we pray. Thank you. Amen. Maybe this episode reminded you of someone who prayed for you, or maybe you're the one praying for somebody else right now. Don't stop. Because love leaves the light on. And sometimes coming home starts with remembering you're always wanted there. And you are always wanted Unrelated Sisters Truth and Gace Conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it. If you need to listen to it over and over again, know that you are loved. Thank you, and happy Mother's Day from Unrelated Sisters Truth and Grace Conversation. Until next time, you're covered in grace.