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Journeys To Mother Love

~ Encouragement and healing in mother/child relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Category Archives: expectations

The Imperfect Job of Mothering

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by arcecil in challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, encouraging each other, expectations, frustration to freedom, generational patterns, importance of prayer, leaving a legacy, Parenting

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authentic relationship, Courage to be honest, Family, Forgiving yourself, Home, Mother, Mother's Day, Parenting

blue-orchids

Is life coming at you like the balls that are shot out of the machine at a batting cage? In that vulnerable place, is your only hope to swing at each new, in-your-face incident, hoping to connect with a few? That has been—and still is—my prayer and hope.

My nest has emptied. Though—praise the Lord—it occasionally fills back up. But I remember those days when I was standing with a bat in my hands and my heart in my throat, as one new challenge after another zoomed at me. Daily I was required to step up to the plate. By the grace of God I connected with the important ones. However, I also missed my share. As I have told my children, who now have children, it’s all about the track record.

We cannot do a perfect job. Our children will be fine if our track record has more hits than misses. If we dwell on the missed or messed-up opportunities, we will be too preoccupied to see the next ball when it comes our way. Anyway, our children aren’t counting. They are more perceptive than we give them credit for being. They see Mom up at the plate, bat in hand. They understand she isn’t perfect. In fact, they are more comfortable in a loving, imperfect environment than in one where Mom thinks she is in control of everything. (Notice: I could not say, “one that is perfect.” There are no perfect situations. My only alternative was to express the above comparison as “one where Mom thinks she is in control of everything.”)

We have hit on something here! A mother’s unrealistic outlook can create bad circumstances—one for herself, and one for her family. From such an artificial scenario, a tired, sad mom—and confused, angry children—will emerge. On Mother’s Day, Mom will not hear accolades of, “Thank you, thank you for giving your all to project perfection!” Rather, she will be amazed at the resentment that all those efforts will reap.

Children who live in reality and learn how to accept their imperfect environments are better prepared for life. Herein lies the legacy that our children will be able to vocalize to their children: “Well, I’m going to miss some of the balls that come my way, but I will show up everyday, sincerely focus, and try to connect with each new challenge. And in addition, you—my dear offspring—will have a front row seat to watch how a person can appropriately respond to those missed or messed-up challenges.”

Then, their children—our grandchildren—will grow up and be able to echo the same authentic witness.

More importantly, all these generations will understand the real power behind the successes and how their mothers were able to humbly accept the imperfections of life. This witness takes place when, before they see their mothers step up to the plate, they see them down on their knees.

~ A.R. (Alice) Cecil

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Dreading Mother’s Day

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by kyleen228 in emotional needs, encouraging each other, expectations, frustration to freedom, infertility, Mother's Day, the healing journey

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adoption, Childless on Mother's Day, Desire for children, Mother's Day, Women's Issues

Kyleen-webKyleen

I dreaded Mother’s Day. I used to day dream about taking the weekend and going away to a spa … anything to get away from the constant reminders that I wasn’t a mother when I wanted so desperately to be one.

Church was torture: smiling mothers holding little ones’ hands, videos of children telling the congregation about their wonderful mommy, roses at the doorway for all the beaming mothers … TORTURE! I went through the motions, trying to disguise the tears that welled. I celebrated with my own mother hoping she didn’t notice how much I didn’t want to participate in this day. Then, at night I cried myself to sleep.

The pain of infertility and barrenness is difficult for many women. Wanting children, we will put ourselves, our families, and our bodies through the ringer in the pursuit of fertility. We watch the other mothers around us and wonder, Why not me? Our friends and family members who conceive easily struggle to relate to us, feeling uncomfortable around us and at a loss for words.

So what are we to do? During those most painful years, while I waited to be chosen as an adoptive mom and I struggled with the pain of childlessness, the only solution that provided any help at all was … surrender. I finally got to the place where I stopped fighting God’s will for my life and accepted that His plan was good, even if it was different from mine. I just told myself over and over: If God has given me this desire for children, then He will fulfill it. I chose hope over despair.

My part was to be open to Him working in a new, creative way in my life: perhaps He would give me spiritual children; maybe He would give me a ministry that would be like a child—something that I birthed and nurtured; maybe I would be called to raise other people’s children through foster care. Whatever His will, I had to trust that it was the best for me.

Ephesians 1:18 says, “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.”

So this Mother’s Day, if you are a woman who is childless and brokenhearted, embrace hope.  If you are blessed with children, appreciate them; and encourage the other women around you who are childless and struggling.

~Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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A Grateful Lesson in Letting go of our Children

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by ardisanelson in challenges of motherhood, expectations, Gratitude, importance of prayer, Motherhood, Parenting, Thanksgiving

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authentic relationship, Children, Family, Finding our identity, Gratitude, kids leaving home, letting go, Parenting, personal discoveries, Praying for our children, Thanksgiving

Letting go of our children reaps a harvest in unexpected ways.

As much as I want it too, time doesn’t stand still. In fact as we age I’ve found that it actually seems to move at a faster pace. Kids grow up, graduate from college, leave the nest, and settle into a new life as they seek independence and start a career or family.

Whether our children choose to live nearby, across the state, or across the country, we will be faced with challenges to our parenting and our ability to let go.

It’s a timeless lesson in love and sacrifice.

My older son graduated from college a few years ago and, because of a lucrative job offer, immediately moved out of state. There was no time for transition between the two major milestones.

It was a crazy time for my husband and me as parents. We experienced the pride of his graduation and excitement for his new life. We packed up all of his belongings and settled him into his new apartment. Then we had to face the tearful goodbyes.

Those first few months were pretty rough on all of us. Our son expressed his dissatisfaction with being so far away from his friends and family.  It was hard for him at work—starting over as the low man on the totem pole and learning the technical aspects of his job and the organizational culture. I think if he hadn’t been bound by a two-year employment contract, he would’ve seriously considered moving back home.

He recently made an expected visit to our area, and surprised his father on his birthday. I don’t think he realized what a gift that was to our family—away from the normal holiday rush that soon awaits us. For that one day it felt as if he had never left home—like one of his visits home from college.

In our short time together, I was struck with his maturity and the dramatic change in his demeanor. He said someone at work told him that the first six months on the job would be the worst. Well, he survived that and is now applying for a one-year assignment in another country. That’s quite a shift for someone who had a hard time looking beyond his present circumstances as a new employee.

As we talked about his life in his new home state, I also noticed his maturity in other ways. He was making adult decisions, making new friends, learning more about himself, his likes and dislikes.

Then it hit me. Our letting go had given him a chance to find his own way. Letting go had been a process. In occasional conversations during this time, his father and I had offered our encouragement and support. We came to trust our son to make his own decisions and for God to guide him (and us) along the way.

We sacrifice for our children in so many ways when they are young—our time, commitment, and finances. We pour our love and our hearts into them, hoping and praying that they will become wise and godly stewards of their time and talents.

Through it all, I know this to be true: they grow up way too fast, but letting go always reaps a harvest in some unexpected way.

In parenting our children and preparing them for adulthood, we can be grateful for these unexpected blessings from Above.

What lesson have you learned in letting go of your children?

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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“Mom-ness”

19 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by kyleen228 in challenges of motherhood, encouraging each other, expectations, Learning to appreciate Mom, Motherhood, Parenting, When Dad must be Mom

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Children, Family, Mothering, Parenting, Working Mothers

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Dads (and grandpas) have a lot of influence, too.

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cropped-blog-header-web.jpg

I’ve experienced many incarnations of “mom-ness” in my forty-two years. I grew up with a strong mom: She started a business and grew it from grossing $40,000 a year to almost $1,000,000. I am now a co-owner of that company, and it will help support my family just as it supported me growing up. In the nearly forty year history of our company, through boom and bust times in Wyoming, it has provided jobs for countless women and has made a significant contribution to the community.

My mom was incredibly dedicated to her career, but she managed to always make me feel I was important too. She taught me about hard work, achievement, and balance. I’ll never forget feeling sorry for myself because she wasn’t home after school to bake me cookies. One day I complained about this. The resulting conversation taught me one of the most important lessons of my life.

“Kyleen,” she said. “I know it would be nice if I was home all the time for you, but what you have to understand is that I work because it makes me happy. I am a better mom to you because I work.”

I didn’t fully understand her message until much later in life; but she taught me I could have career aspirations, and my own life, while being an excellent mother to my children. I didn’t have to choose one over the other, because it was more than possible to have both.

Despite my mom’s example, when my children were very small, I struggled with guilt as I left for work. But God blessed me with a husband who valued my career aspirations and felt relieved not to be the only one who was responsible for bringing home the bacon, so to speak. We split the responsibilities in our home fifty-fifty, and we hired excellent in-home nannies.

Yesterday my husband and I saw a video of Anita Renfroe’s “The Mom Song,” in which Anita humorously depicts the myriad of things a mom might say to her children in a day. We laughed the whole way through, and my husband leaned over to say, “I’ve said almost everything in that video to the kids at one time or the other.”

The truth is, we both have. My husband has “mom-ness,” too, although he would prefer to call it “integrated maleness.” I just call it awesomeness.

I honor and applaud all mothers … those who work, those who stay home and those who are dads.

~Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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If Your Child is a Prodigal

05 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by guestmom in Alice Scott-Ferguson, challenges of motherhood, expectations, Free to Love, God as our parent, Guest Post, Parenting, reconciliation, the healing journey

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a heart filled with love and hope, Courage to be honest, Finding our identity, Forgiveness, Forgiving yourself, God the Father, kids leaving home, letting go, Mothering, no false guilt or shame, Parenting, the prodigal child

Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_-_The_Return_of_the_Prodigal_SonDo you know the pain of mothering a prodigal?

If ever a situation poured self-recrimination, regret, and remorse on a mother, it is this one. Whether or not we have contributed to the child leaving home, faith, church, and even in some cases, God, our child has made a decision that we must respect. — We must not chide ourselves over our children’s autonomous choices.

Mention of the mother is missing in the most famous account of a prodigal, told by Luke in his gospel. Most likely she was there, though. Author Henri Nouwen explains that he sees the mother in the hands of the father in Rembrandt’s painting of The Prodigal (above):

“The father’s left hand touching the son’s shoulder is strong and muscular. How different is the father’s right hand! It lies gently upon the son’s shoulder—to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother’s hand.” (quoted from The Return of the Prodigal, Image Book, 1992)

One mother admitted that it was easier for her husband to accept their daughter’s return than it was for her. Her struggle exemplifies the unrealistic responsibility mothers tend to assume for the destiny of their children. “What will people say about me as a mother?”

The prodigal may represent one of the hardest trials of a mother’s heart. But after we have cried an ocean and wailed into the dark silence of the night, hope in God. He is the heavenly Parent and is willing to wait, knowing that we all must come to an end of our own self-sufficiency before we become truly dependent on Him and not ourselves.

Let the prodigal process have its way. It is far more important for your wandering child to find the Father, than for your child to make you look good.

Henri Nouwen says that we are all prodigals if we are looking for our approval and acceptance from anywhere other than God. That includes mothers. Are we looking for the commendation of the church, family, or community that we want to impress with our perfect family, while our prodigal causes us shame and embarrassment? Then we too are being profligate in terms of our relationship with our heavenly Father, since we are looking for our identity outside of Christ. When our self identity is extricated from that of our child’s, then we are freed to love enough to let them go. We can let our reputation slide and learn our own utter dependence on God while we wait for our prodigal child to learn it as well.

We have no need to pretend in order to gain either the approval of God or man. We have no need to hide our pain or the less than perfect places and people in our lives.

“Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am not going to go back on that” (Galatians 2).


Alice Scott-Ferguson is a Scottish-born freelance writer, author, and motivational speaker who lives in Arizona. She writes from her heart as a wife, mother, grandmother, and Christ-follower. Among other books, she is the author of Mothers Can’t Be Everywhere, But God Is : A Liberating Look at Motherhood, from which this post is extracted.

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A Gluten-free, Sugar-free, Conflict-free Christmas Dinner?

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in expectations, family gatherings, generations coming together, Mom and Christmas, the healing journey

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Christmas, Family traditions, Holidays, life's upward path

Photo

One of the family Christmas Dinners in my past, when I was a mom but not yet a grandma.

I guess all families hope for a conflict-free Christmas Dinner. We hope the children will leave their new toys and come to the table willingly. We hope certain extended family member won’t bring up certain memories (as they always do). We hope Grandpa won’t say a blessing before the meal that goes on and on like a sermon (and like this sentence) while the kids peek at each other and stomachs rumble and mouths water and Mother worries that the food will get cold.

Like Tiny Tim’s mother, the cook hopes her “Christmas pudding” or whatever special dish she attempted for the holiday will turn out and everyone will like it.

As a mother, and now a grandmother, I have often been the Christmas Dinner cook. I know how Mrs. Cratchit felt. And I know the joy of a holiday meal together around a festive table with candles burning, spicy and savory scents wafting from colorfully prepared dishes, the best silver clinking on pretty china, and the children, who are eager for dessert, allowed to drink out of fancy crystal goblets.

But this is the first year that I, to avoid conflict with special diets, had to adjust my usual holiday recipes to accommodate my husband, who must eat gluten-free now, and my granddaughter, who is on a doctor-ordered diet of no sugar or lactose.

We had ham dinner. I couldn’t use the packaged glaze that came with the ham because it contained both gluten and sugar. So I mixed my own glaze of honey and lemon. It helps that we have a lot of honey from our backyard beehive. I used honey in several of the dishes, including the gelatin salad and the dessert, both of which were much less rich than what I’ve usually served. (I have always made pies before — pecan, apple, and pumpkin with whipped cream).

My family scarfed down the food without qualm — and even the children asked for more salad and dessert. So I’m going to share these recipes with you in case you’d like to try them. Here they are:

Sparkling Gelatin Salad

In a saucepan pour 4 cups Cranberry-Cherry Juice (unsweetened, 100% fruit juice). Sprinkle over that 4 packages of Plain Gelatin. Stir over low heat until dissolved. Add 1/3 cup Honey and stir till dissolved. Stir in 1 cup Sparkling Cider. Chill till partially set. Then add: chopped, unpeeled organic Apples, sliced Bananas, and some coarsely-chopped Pecans. Mix and pour into a gelatin mold. Chill. Just before serving, unmold the salad onto a pretty, round Christmas platter.

Baked Honey Custard

In a mixing bowl, slightly beat 4 Eggs. Stir in 1/2 cup Honey, 2-1/2 cups Milk (I used coconut milk), 1/2 teaspoon Salt, and 1 teaspoon Vanilla. Mix well. Pour into six custard cups. Place cups in a shallow pan and pour 1/2-inch of hot water around them. Bake in 350-degree oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until a knife inserted 1/2-inch from edge comes out “clean.” Sprinkle with Nutmeg if desired. Cool, then chill in refrigerator and serve cold. You may want to serve the custards along with a plate of Christmas cookies.

Our Christmas dinner (which we celebrated a few days early this year with our daughter’s family) was conflict-free also, in the sense that no one had to worry about whether or not they could eat the food.

Because we love our families, we keep making adjustments.

Merry Christmas!

~ Catherine Lawton

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THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by arcecil in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, emotional needs, expectations, forgiving mom, forgiving yourself, generational patterns, God's healing love, Jesus on the cross, letting go of anger, rejecting lies, the healing journey

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authentic relationship, Forgiveness, Healing love, life stages, mother and daughter

flowers, mountain sillouette, and sunset

flowers, mountain silhouette, and sunset

The four of us sat in the dining room of the nursing home. Two of us had cars in the parking lot; we were free to leave any time. The other two occupied wheelchairs because their legs would not support the weight of their bodies and their minds would not support a plan as simple as how to exit the building.

I was one of the ones who would be leaving. Usually I am the only non-resident who is sitting at my mother’s table in the dining hall, but this day the daughter of another lady had come to visit. The two of us carried on a conversation between the bits and pieces of attention that we gave our mothers, those bits and pieces being all our mothers could receive.

Then, out of the blue, the other daughter made a statement. “This one,” she said, as she gestured with a sideways nod toward her mother. (“This one”! Had she just called her mother “this one”? I thought.) “Kept a perfect house,” the other daughter continued. “Beds had to be made every morning. Twice a year we had to clean everything from the ceilings to the floors.”

I looked at the woman’s mother. She is younger than my mother by 15-20 years, but oxygen tubes trailed from her nostrils. My mother, who is now 99 years old, was going strong 15-20 years ago. The lady with the oxygen tubes was oblivious to her daughter’s comment. My mind scanned its reservoir of information, searching for an appropriate response to the other daughter’s comment. (My knee-jerk reaction was, I wish my childhood home had been tidier; but I did not tell her that. My next thought was, I wonder if my children think I cared too much about the cleanliness and order? But, of course, I didn’t air that question either.) The moment passed for lack of feedback, and the conversation moved in another direction.

Soon the visit ended. It was time for my mother’s nap. I exited the building to my car in the parking lot. In the car on the way back to accomplish the rest of my list of errands, my thoughts were drawn back to the table in the dining hall. Is there anybody who wishes his or her childhood was different, and therefore, better?

It is impossible to make a perfect home, to be a perfect mother, or to be a perfect child. But that’s what our minds seem to be set on: Perfect. We really think we can accomplish perfect, or we can go through life “bent out of shape” because our childhood home was not the version of perfect we were longing to have. I know there are varying degrees of imperfection, and some people have huge hurdles to overcome.

However, we have a heavenly Father who covers us in grace. After Adam and Eve sinned, God covered them with the skins of animals. Those animals were the first creatures to know death. That act of love was a foreshadowing of the supreme act of covering with grace by the death of God’s Son, Jesus, on a cross.

God’s grace is the only way we can break the cycle of hurt—anger—hurt—anger—hurt. We might not be able to control very much in our lives, or accomplish a long list of achievements. But, we can accomplish—I believe—the greatest achievement. We can be the generation in our family that chooses to break those negative cycles for our family. We do this by forgiving and “covering each other with grace.”

~A.R. (Alice) Cecil

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Mediocre is for Sissys ?

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by kyleen228 in Adopted children, challenges of motherhood, expectations, frustration to freedom, Parenting, the healing journey

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letting go, mother and daughter, Parenting

mother watching kids board school bus

So this has been the year when I have had to face the fact that my daughter might never be “academic.” I always told myself that a “C” grade was okay, as it meant my child was average, and average means, well, normal. However, being an overachiever myself, I have struggled with making that sentiment a reality in my attitudes. The truth is, I don’t want my child to be “average.” I want her to be extraordinary.

This year, during parent and teacher conferences her teacher presented my daughter’s rank in the class. 17 out of 20. Ouch, that stung. First I got angry. Then, I felt embarrassed. I had trouble concentrating through the remainder of the conference. “17 out of 20?” I kept repeating it over and over in my brain. Then a slow but definite dislike for her teacher started to swell within me. “What a horrible thing to show a parent,” I thought. “What kind of a teacher are you?”

Truth is, the problem was mine and not her teacher’s. I was having the issue with my daughter’s ranking. My daughter quite happily goes to school and thinks her teacher is wonderful. If she is aware of her academic struggles, she doesn’t seem to notice. She is certainly not hung up on her class ranking. Should I be?

~Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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Hope Realized

23 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by arcecil in challenges of motherhood, emotional needs, encouraging each other, expectations, God's healing love, Gratitude, the healing journey

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Nativity

Nativity (Photo credit: maury.mccown)

THE BLESSING COMES BACK — a poem

Naively, I thought that the innocent babe of Bethlehem
would always be mine to hold.
The child who ran to me with an injured knee
was completely content to receive my comfort.
I thought that I had all the answers.
Now I cling to that small window of time,
when I was able to convey a mother’s
love, values, and beliefs.

When the door of His childhood closed,
He seemed to be a million miles away.
I felt He was beyond my reach.
He spent His days in reflective silence.

What is He intently preparing to do? I pondered.
Who is this person who stands before me?
I—who bore Him, fed Him, trained Him—
shouldn’t I have some say?

But here He was in front of me, taller than me.
His confidence and focus made me wonder:
Other than bringing Him into the world
and helping Him grow physically,
what role did I play?

The circumstances of His life moved Him many miles away.
I could no longer embrace Him.
I thought about Him every day.
Where was His life taking Him?
Did He realize that the distance between us
would determine our destinies?
Did He, like me, ever reminisce about the good old days
when we lived in sweet simplicity?

Time passed, and I spied Him through the crowd
in the marketplace with His disciples.
He was always glad to reunite with me;
He always hugged me hard.

Then, I witnessed the reason for His life . . .

As I looked up at Him on the cross,
I understood everything was pointing
to that horrible day.

After three hours, He said, “It is finished,”
And my heart broke within me.
And my soul, like the tabernacle curtain, tore in two.*

. . .

Once again, He stands before me.
He cannot hide the nail-punctured wounds.
His thoughts are laid out like building blocks
of all that is noble, true, and pure.
His heart pours out with rivers of love.

I thank God for our small window of time together.
I am blessed beyond measure to be His mother.

*Matthew 27:51

~ A.R. (Alice) Cecil

Editor’s Note: This poem, written from the viewpoint of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is taken from Alice’s just-released book of poetry, In That Place Called Day: Poems and Reflections That Witness God’s Love.

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Treasuring Christmas in our Hearts

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in encouraging each other, expectations, God's healing love

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

a heart filled with love and hope, Christian spirituality, Christmas, God's promises, Holidays

Christ-NativityAt this time of year as I try to set aside the holiday rush and connect with the real reason for the season, I find myself wondering what it was like to be a witness to what God was doing in the lives of Mary and Joseph. The Bible doesn’t say what their immediate families thought about Mary’s claims to be a virgin with child. The only glimpse of unbelief comes from Joseph when he considers divorcing Mary.

Looking at how Mary and Joseph kept their faith in the midst of such possible ridicule and shame helps me to see how God operates in our lives. Here are a few ways that God reminded Mary and Joseph what He was capable of:

  1. An angel told Mary she would give birth—as a virgin.
  2. Mary visited Elizabeth and received confirmation of what the angel told her.
  3. Mary carried Jesus in her womb as a constant reminder of God’s promise to her.
  4. Shepherds were sent by angels to worship Jesus.
  5. The wise men bearing gifts were guided by a star to visit Jesus.
  6. God protected the young family as they escaped to Egypt to avoid Herod’s murderous spree.

While it may seem like a stretch to compare ourselves to Mary and Joseph, they were human and I imagine that they needed these reminders as well—especially when it came to watching Jesus be crucified on the cross.

In my pastor’s Sunday message, he noted one way to experience peace this Christmas is to find ways to remind ourselves of what God is capable of. The verse that comes to my mind as I look back at how God has shown up in my life is also from the Christmas story. It is Luke 2:19: But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Like Mary’s story, God gives us glimpses of Himself in our lives. He wants us to treasure them, to remind ourselves of them, and sometimes even cling to them in times of trials and tribulations. When we remind ourselves of God’s goodness in our lives, we can trust Him in the dark periods too. It builds our faith and it gives us His peace.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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Relationships Can Be Complicated

07 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in challenges of motherhood, expectations, forgiving mom, forgiving yourself, generational patterns, generations coming together, Learning to appreciate Mom, the healing journey

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authentic relationship, Finding our identity, Israel, Messianic Judaism, Mother, mother and daughter, relationships, Yeshua

Catherine and her mother

That’s me and Mother (a few years ago!)

In her review on Amazon.com of Journeys to Mother Love, Judy Pex* wrote, “I would recommend this book to any woman because even if we don’t all have daughters, we do all have mothers, and from my personal experience as well as women I speak with, those relationships can often be complicated.”

When it comes to complicated relationships, Judy knows of what she speaks. Growing up Jewish in America, living most of her adult life as a Messianic believer in Israel, raising her children to believe in Yeshua (Jesus) while they attended Israeli schools and then served in the Israeli army, hosting travelers from all over the world in the hostel she and her husband, John, run. Worshiping with and caring for people from many different cultural and language backgrounds. Working with refugees. All kinds of opportunities for complicated relationships (which she navigates with grace)!

Especially fraught with opportunities for complications is the mother/child relationship, and most especially the mother/daughter relationship. Why is that?

I’m going to list some thoughts off the top of my head about what might cause those complications:

1. Perhaps mothers try to re-live their lives through their daughters. And perhaps daughters see themselves or their potential selves in their mothers, and they may or may not like what they see.

2. Unrealistic expectations.

3. Emotional dependence.

4. The need to (and not always managing to) really listen and view your daughter – or mother – as a unique individual in her own right.

I’m sure there are many more contributing factors. Maybe our readers can add their thoughts about why this mother/daughter relationship can – and often does – become so complicated.

~ Catherine Lawton

*Judy (Judith Galblum Pex) is the author of Walk the Land: A Journey on Foot through Israel and A People Tall and Smooth: Stories of Escape from Sudan to Israel.

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God Knows the Desires Of Your Heart

11 Saturday May 2013

Posted by kyleen228 in Adopted children, challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, expectations, feeling inadequate, God's healing love, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Adoption, Mother's Day

Violets in the gardenAs an adoptive mom, Mother’s Day brings many emotions. For years before my husband and I adopted children, I dreaded Mother’s Day. It reminded me of what I wanted and did not have. Even now, 8 years since we adopted our first child, I can still remember those feelings with surprising freshness. Infertility or barrenness is a difficult road to walk. Most young women assume motherhood will be a part of their life experience. When God has other plans, the shock and despair can be overwhelming. Given this, I thought it might be helpful to share how God helped me navigate this emotional mine field.

After my cancer and hysterectomy, I considered many options and struggled with much fear. My husband and I discussed surrogacy, adoption, foster care, and remaining childless. Many well-meaning friends tried to convince me that not having kids wasn’t such a bad thing, especially my friends with teenagers. Their warnings fell on deaf ears, however. I knew that my life would simply not be complete without children.

Four years later, with considerable pain, after deciding on adoption and still being without a child, I finally had to ask the question I dreaded: “Lord, do you not want me to have children?” What if He said “yes”? How could I reframe my life into a world that didn’t include children? It seemed impossible to me. And yet, I still had to ask. What I heard that day began to change my perspectives. In a still, small voice within my heart I heard, “Wait upon me and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

Wait…..  Okay Lord, but isn’t that what I have been doing? Four years of waiting is a long time. What am I waiting for? Or better yet, what are YOU waiting for? Are you waiting on me?

Then one day God led me to 1 Samuel 1:1-20 and the story of Hannah. Barren and brokenhearted, Hannah was blinded by her grief. She had the love of her husband, his preference, in fact, over his other wife Penninnah who had given him children. Indeed, one day when Hannah was weeping, her husband asked her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than 10 sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8). Hannah’s  despair over being childless kept her from enjoying the blessings God had given her.

I realized I had been like Hannah, so consumed over the desire to be a mother that the sadness over what I wanted and did not have kept me from enjoying the good in my life, and there was so much good! I realized I had to surrender my will to God, believing his promise that if he chose not to make me a mother, he would fulfill the desires of my heart some other way. I started to see how God could provide spiritual children, a ministry, a career or so many other things that would fulfill my heart. I just needed to trust Him with my hopes and dreams.

Not long after that, the call finally came and a few months later we brought home a beautiful baby girl. I think God had been waiting for me to take that leap of faith and let go of my plans for my life. So if this Mother’s Day brings the pain of childlessness, let me encourage you to trust God with the desires of your heart. He may choose to bless you with children or He may choose to bless you in other ways. He made your heart and put your deepest desires there. He knows what will make you truly happy.

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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THE RESULT OF PRAYER

17 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by arcecil in encouraging each other, expectations, family gatherings, generations coming together, the healing journey

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authentic relationship, Holidays, Prayer, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Table

I wrote this e-mail in response to the e-mails of my three daughters, who are planning our family Thanksgiving this year:

Dear Daughters,

As I see your e-mails flying back and forth from one of you to the others, I am filled with joy. My grown daughters are planning Thanksgiving together! You want everyone to be considered, you want it to be a good time, and you are wise enough to know a bit of planning will iron out many wrinkles.

As you know, prayer will be in our plans and in our time together. And we’ll also need to bear in mind our Thanksgiving will not be wrinkle-free. If Norman Rockwell were still living, he would not choose our family for an up-dated Thanksgiving family portrait.

I will now jar your memories with a few recent times together. However, as we revisit these “wrinkled” times, we will also be revisiting God’s hand upon them. In the summer we attended the wedding of one of you in Florida. We had prayed for many months before. The result: We had more rainy days than sunny ones, but I have never seen sunnier dispositions. The little ones who had ridden in a car for many miles to play in the sand were cramped into one room of a condo where, without whining, they watched reruns and bonded through games. The wedding was moved from the lawn to a second-floor room, but the bride did not let that dampen her spirit.

In the late summer, your father and I visited one of you overseas. We prayed for many weeks before. The result: I hobbled through Scotland on two stress-fractured feet, but it was a great vacation, made possible be an outpouring of hospitality. And my feet made for a few good laughs.

One of you, with your spouse and child, recently came for a visit. We prayed before you arrived. The result: Our son-in-law was under the weather for most of the time and the three-year-old threw up all over the bedding and himself. But, we were glad to be together and everyone felt blessed.

Yes, I’m quite sure Norman Rockwell would not have chosen our family as one of his group subjects. At Thanksgiving will there be those occasions when the children fight over a toy or fuss when bedtime is called? Sure. Will every dish of the meal turn out to look like and taste like those on the cooking shows? No. Will the house that I will work hard to have in order before you arrive stay that way? No. Will there be some real laughs? Yes. Will everyone leave better for being here? I pray they will. Will God smile down on us? I sincerely believe he will, because, through prayer, we will have included him.    

All my love, Mom

~ A.R. Cecil

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Come to the Table

23 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by arcecil in childhood memories, expectations, family gatherings

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The table is set

All of our journeys begin in childhood and we often revisit that magical time as memories surface unsolicited. Childhood memories are pulled back into our consciousness by sights and sounds and smells. Autumn leaves crunching under our feet will forever be a stroll home from school. The smell of cedar or pine when entering a warm house from the cold outside may transport us back to a childhood Christmas. In a sudden downpour, we see a child dancing in the rain. We recognize this child, a phantom of our yesteryear. The smell of chlorine and sunscreen is a carefree summer’s day at the pool between third and fourth grade when we finally got up enough courage to go off the high dive. “Look at me-e-e-e,” our squeal told the world on the way down. Crickets chirping outside our bedroom window after nightfall was a childhood lullaby.

Our most endearing memories, however, can easily be the extended family gatherings that brought together the grandparents, aunts, uncles and, of course, the beloved cousins. “Absence does make the heart grow fonder,” as those uncontaminated relationships with the cousins epitomized all that could possibly be right with the world. The adults would be huddled around the kitchen table after the plates had been cleared away, drinking strong coffee and talking and laughing. The cousins would then steal away. No telling what adventure awaited us in the attic, or under Grandmother’s old bed. We children never got to hear a word the grown-ups said; that was adult talk, not meant for our ears. We didn’t care back then; playing was our passion. If we could go back, we would listen in on their conversation. Dad was there; Mom was there talking and interacting with their peers. If we could see them now through the eyes of the adults we have become, what would we see? What would we hear?

There is usually one member in every family of the attic dwellers who in his or her adulthood puts together a family tree. (My brother, the oldest sibling, was the one who put ours together.) But, the family tree is only a skeleton of our past. Those laughing and talking people around the kitchen table were the flesh and blood. However, would hearing their interpretations add that much meaning to our present and future? Would who they were be that significant in revealing the persons we have become? We may rightfully feel that their interaction with us has stamped us in some negative way, which has put us on a mission to find out who we really are.

“Who am I?” we may have pondered at an age when we wanted answers. The stacks of how-to books purchased by the need-to-know generations post-World War II, were read in hopes of finding the answers to why we think what we think and do what we do; but did they scratch the surface of our souls? Not mine. One day, I took the lot of them to Goodwill, but not without feeling a wee bit guilt for “unloading” them on some other unsuspecting fellow seekers of truth.

Time and so many dead-ends have taught me that there is ONLY ONE WAY we can arrive at the place of knowing the persons God intends us to be. “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Corinthians 2: 10b-12). We are believers and we have God’s spirit living in us! And now as his BELOVED CHILDREN, we can come to his table where we feast on life-changing knowledge.

~ A.R. Cecil

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Mother Love

17 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by Christina in emotional needs, expectations, forgiving mom, God's healing love, importance of prayer, mother wounds, reconciliation, the healing journey

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Life is like a Ferris wheel going round and round, repeating itself over and over, sometimes you find yourself on the top looking out over your life. You think, ‘This is good; I could go on like this forever.’ But as soon as you get really comfortable with that thought, you feel yourself slowly slipping over the edge, descending toward some unknown yet familiar pit that consumes you until you feel the wheel slowly ascending to the top again.

I read this passage with its beautiful imagery in Katie’s Choice, a novel by Tracey Langford. The character in her story thinks about the seasons of the year, like football and Thanksgiving and Easter and how these event staples in our lives reliably return year by year. I picture each “car” of the Ferris wheel carrying people who enter and sometimes exit our lives, but have still been a part of the ride or journey. And who we have, for better or worse, developed a relationship with. Sometimes those relationships also go through a similar pattern—up and down, seeing a promising future and then feeling like we can’t connect well.

But there is one relationship that was always there. One that started before we were born. One we felt and treasured in our own limited way, even in the beginning: The one with our mother.

This site is dedicated to that Mother Love, even when it takes a round-about journey to get there. I believe that a complete healing and wholeness can be found in any mother-child relationship, even if you thought it was too late.

That is the premise of the collection of stories written by nine women in Journeys to Mother Love: Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing, compiled by Catherine Lawton and published by Cladach Publishing (www.cladach.com). No matter what your background, you will find yourself drawn to these stories and be able to relate to many of the feelings, experiences, and challenges these women have faced. And maybe, like them, you will find more healing and closure through God’s love, forgiveness and peace than you ever imagined!

Here are the stories in the book:

1. FEELING INADEQUATE:
Run, Run as Fast as You Can by A.R. Cecil

2.  DEVASTATED by VIOLENCE and SEPARATION:
She Did Her Best by Treva Brown

3.  ALWAYS “SECOND FIDDLE”:
Take Care of Your Mother by Verna Hill Simms

4.  ADJUSTING to CHANGES in MOM:
Finding the Blessings in Alzheimer’s by Kerry Luksic

5.  AFTER ABORTION and CANCER:
Beauty from Barrenness by Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

6.  UNMET EMOTIONAL NEEDS:
When I Feel Forsaken by Catherine Lawton

7.  STEPMOTHER BLUES:
Finishing Well by Ellen Cardwell

8.  DISTANCED by a MENTAL DISORDER:
Walking My Mother Home by Ardis A. Nelson

9.  ANGRY and FRUSTRATED with MOM:
White Knuckles by Loritta Slayton

Do you have a wonderful relationship with your mom and/or your children today? We hope you do! And we would love to hear your story, too. You are not alone! This is a place to connect and to share. A place where you can find Christians who have gone through similar struggles … or are still going through them.

Whether you are looking at life from the upside or the downside, God cares. And so do we.

~ Christina Slike

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