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Journeys To Mother Love

~ Encouragement and healing in mother/child relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Category Archives: frustration to freedom

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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Storing Away Christmas ~ THE GOD BOX

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by arcecil in emotional needs, frustration to freedom, Mom and Christmas, Relinquishment

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

After Christmas, Holidays, letting go, personal discoveries, relationships, Women's Issues

©Lisa Risager (Wikimedia)

©Nevit Dilmen (Wikimedia)

The boxes sit all around me, saying, “Okay. When are you going to fill us with Christmas ornaments and take us back down to the basement?” They can no longer be ignored. Well, I’ll ignore them a little longer because these boxes have reminded me of all the other boxes in my life. And I want to tell you about them …

I am a woman. Women have many, many boxes in their brains. This truth was confirmed to me by the teaching of Mark Gungor, who leads marriage seminars. He uses the word picture of boxes to convey the various areas of our lives that are important to us. He goes on to say that all the boxes in a woman’s brain are connected by wires to all the other boxes. He is so right. Women do connect the house box to the husband box, which is connected to the boxes for children, grandchildren, meals, travel, extended family, memories, weather, books, church, and shopping.

Personally, I found this approach to life exhausting. One box could short-circuit all the other boxes. Then I realized I had one more box, immeasurably bigger than all the others. So, I disconnected the wires that ran from each small box to other small boxes, took those wires and connected them to the Big Box.

The Big Box is God, of course. All those small boxes are still open at the same time, but they are only seen as they relate to the Big Box. No one small box can ever stop me in my tracks again. Even when information from the wire of a small box is delivering unpleasant information into the Big Box—once it is in there, it doesn’t stand a chance of dominating my time and energy. The situation or the relationship is put into perspective. It’s now in the God Box, or—to use a more familiar expression—in God’s hands.

All the memories connected to these Christmas ornaments—I place them now in God’s hands.

I’ll go back to storing away Christmas.

But isn’t that just like God to take a few empty boxes—that came out of the house box—have them meet in the Big Box with the writing box … and out pops a post?

~A.R. (Alice) Cecil

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Who Am I?

29 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by arcecil in frustration to freedom, generational patterns, the healing journey

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accepting ourselves, Finding our identity, life's upward path, nature vs nurture, negative childhood influences, personal discoveries, transformation

dogwood flowers

I am a result of both nature and nurture. But I have choices, and God is working in me.

We seek to know; this is a God-given desire. One thing we want to know is about ourselves. Why am I so much like my mother? Why is my child so different from me? Would I have been different with a different upbringing? Should I blame my parents or grandparents for who I am and what I am? Why is it so hard to change, even when I see things about myself that need to change?

Studies have revealed the very real possibility that we were 75% of the persons we were going to be when we were born. (Here we are talking in terms of our personalities and genetic predispositions where some traits are an asset and some are not.)

For instance, we came into this world as persons who are extroverts or introverts. The extrovert relishes being in the center of all that is fun. Or he may be the leader of a corporation. Then there are those among us who are introverts and like to spend our days pouring over books. And, how can we forget those dear individuals who are the natural-born peacemakers? Ask any mother: “Did your child come into the world with his or her personality already exhibiting itself?” And she will answer with an emphatic “Yes!”

We cannot change who we are in this regard. I know a woman who jokingly said, “I am a sanguine want-to-be.” She has a beautiful, analytic mind; she has the temperament of a melancholic. She might not be the life of the party, but sit next to her and she’ll have some very interesting things to say. She was joking; I don’t think she really wanted to change herself. In fact, her humorous remark came out of her analytical personality! Would any of us really want to change who we are? If we think about it, everything about God’s design for us fits; it is just right for the persons God made us to be.

However, if the influences in the childhood home or culture are unhealthy, then the strength of the personality can become a weakness. The extrovert, who had the potential of being a servant-leader in the home or at the office, can become the boss. The introvert can shut himself off from all people. And the peacemaker can become a doormat.

For example, the peacemaker may trade reality for denial. He may think this is a very noble approach, but the rest of us are left sniffing daisies, as he calls them roses. “This flower sure does smell sweet!” he will say, and we may feel forced to agree. (Have I just described the living room where the elephant got to claim most of the space?)

When receiving new life through faith in Jesus Christ, we are made ready to be transformed by the Lord’s working in our lives and hearts. God not only designed our personalities, he stands ready to shape them! “Our old self was crucified with Christ” (Romans 6:6). The “old self” includes not only our own sin, but also any unhealthy influences on God’s intended purposes for us. We can experience increasing freedom from the power of harmful, negative influences that have hindered us from being what God created us to be: more than conquerors (see Romans 8:37).

Just knowing the dynamics of our past, heredity, or personality will not necessarily influence our lives for good or give us power to overcome the negative influences. There is a saying: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” This little knowledge—insights about our past and personality—can be a dangerous thing, if we stop there.

By the grace of God, we can flourish as God’s vibrant individuals by pressing on with the personal knowledge of the Lord. There will come a day when we will see that we are exceedingly blessed to be who we are.

~A.R. Cecil

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Helicopter Mom, You’re Creating a Draft

04 Monday May 2015

Posted by guestmom in challenges of motherhood, frustration to freedom, God as our parent, Guest Post, hovering and controlling, mother wounds, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

kids leaving home, letting go, Modeling the faith, Mothering, Parenting, Women's Issues

 Bomba_heli

Controlling for Take-Off

When my daughter was raising little ones, I first heard of the helicopter analogy. It paints a picture of a fussing, overly solicitous mom who is fearful to let Tommy toddler try anything new without the constant whirring of her benevolent blades. Then, just as the helicopter hovers over its occupants even after they have disembarked, so we often continue trying to control our children even when they are grown and gone, creating the kind of draft that causes our offspring to duck out of the way. The current is often so great that they feel helpless to be free of its influence—an influence that haunts them and continues to disturb their adult lives. If they do get away, they don’t come back.

Guest-Post-logo

We hover because we think we can preside over all the eventualities of our children’s lives. Of course genuine, responsible guidance is essential, especially to ensure the physical welfare of a small child. But we often go beyond what’s necessary, thinking that if only we stay near to oversee, then we will be able to make sure no evil befalls them.

We are often unaware that the draft we cause with our fussing actually blows our children off course and out of the wind of the Spirit who is directing their lives. Someone once compiled a list of a few examples of how our natural proclivities as mothers sometimes get in the way of the greater good:

•    Being a mother is wanting to pick up your children each time they fall, but teaching them to pick themselves up instead.
•    Being a mother is wanting to keep them from all hurt and harm, but knowing that they must be taught to take care of themselves.
•    Being a mother is wanting to give them the best of everything, but knowing they will value life more if they wait and work for many of their rewards.

My own mothering life is replete with illustrations of yours truly as Helicopter Mom. Many years ago, one of our sons was living alone some distance from us, where he was working just before going to college. From every communication I had with him, it appeared that his life was one catastrophe after another. Following one telephone conversation, I slumped down into the chair saying, “God, please do something.”

The response was swift and searing: “I will, if you get out of the way!”

I was dumbfounded. God could do it!—without my fretting, cajoling, or even sending care packages. And He did. In the heavenly Parent’s own good time, all the issues were resolved—car finally up and running, rent money provided, fingers healed from a nasty accident—and my son took another step on the journey of trusting the God who is everywhere, rather than a mother who is not.

Our love is limited and lacks the divine perspective. As such, our attempts to control can result in over-involvement in our children’s lives that ranges from the ridiculous, like the mother who wanted to go on her daughter’s honeymoon, to the more sinister situation of the son who felt constrained to call his mother when sexual temptation with his fiancée threatened to overtake him. Such was the extent of the toxicity in that unhealthy mother-son relationship. Kenneth M. Adams poses a piercing question for our consideration:

Did you have a parent whose love for you felt more confining than freeing, more demanding than giving, more intrusive than nurturing?

We are in a wonderfully privileged position, and we may well be our child’s best, and most trusted, friend. We do have the responsibility to be available to listen, guide, and model, but our best efforts cannot preside over every outcome. Our calling is simply to stand, confident of the supremacy of God as their perfect Parent. If we stand still, we do not create unwanted currents.

We do the best by our children when we cultivate calmness and model faith instead of fretting and manipulating. As we learn to relinquish our need for control, we are free to love more unconditionally and lend support, rather than running to the rescue. When we allow our children, no matter how little they are, to take responsibility for their own behaviors, we facilitate the flow of health, wholeness, and wisdom in their lives. Dorothy Canfield Fisher, an eighteenth-century writer, rightly said, “A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”

Let’s start early to lift off in our helicopters so our children can run clear of the whirring blades and have the opportunity to know only the wind of God’s Spirit as their guiding force.


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.

Mothers-Cover-Web

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Mother, Make the Most of Today

29 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in frustration to freedom, Motherhood, Parenting

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Tags

Family, kids leaving home, life stages, Mother, Mothering, Parenting, Women's Issues

Pink-graphicAre you fully engaged in your current stage of motherhood? Or are you focused on getting through this stage of life and reaching the next, longing for personal space and time to pursue your own ambitions? Can’t wait for your toddlers to be potty trained so you can put them in preschool? Can’t wait until your teen learns to drive so you can do something besides commuting kids to lessons, games, church activities?

Remember: Today is the day the Lord has made (Ps. 118:24). The opportunity for bonding with your child, teaching him the values you hold dear, and just plain enjoying him or her and creating memories to cherish and build on, is now!

One author who speaks compassionately to these sometimes-challenging aspects of motherhood is author and speaker, Alice Scott-Ferguson. During the week leading up to Mother’s Day, Alice will be our guest blogger. She will share her motherhood-affirming and faith-affirming insights.

Watch for Alice’s guest posts in the coming week, and enjoy!

Whether you are nursing a newborn, mothering a house full of teens, or enjoying grandchildren, live in the grace-filled moment of God’s “now time.”

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No Regret Wasted

03 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in confessing our need, feeling inadequate, frustration to freedom, God's healing love, Regret transformed, the healing journey

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiving yourself, Healing love, Parenting, Striving for perfection

MorePhotos 023

My friend, Jasona, shares wise words that we mothers need to heed. Being a good mother isn’t about having no regrets. … Read on and find out why.

The Deepest Love

This week I listened as two anxious people said to me in separate conversations, “my goal is live so that I have no regrets.” I’ll bet you have heard people give voice to the abbreviated form of this mantra: “No regrets.” Maybe you have even said it yourself.

Though people often mean by this phrase that they want to live with no fear, seizing life at every opportunity, I sensed as my friends spoke that, rather than bringing the joy of freedom, the “no regrets” mantra, ironically, crushed the hearts of my friends under an impossible weight. One spoke of parenting small children, wanting to be so attentive, playful, and present to her children that she would not regret her parenting when they were raised, and the other spoke of making choices in ministry, desiring to risk for God to the degree that she would look back on her life with no regrets.

So…

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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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Tags

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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Unleash Power and Potential

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in challenges of motherhood, encouraging each other, frustration to freedom, the healing journey

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Tags

Christian spirituality, Germination, Parenting, Seed

Seed capsules of Strelitzia nicolai

Seed capsules of Strelitzia nicolai (Photo credit: Tatters)

“Life with a biologist for a mother is never dull,” declares Carol O’Casey, author. “Consider the day I helped my then ten-year-old son Michael connect the dots between an orange and its seed. As he painstakingly struggled to remove each seed from the orange he was about to consume, he innocently wondered out loud where seeds come from and why oranges had to have seeds. Warning—don’t ever ask a biologist ‘why’ without expecting an in-depth explanation. I shared with Michael the literal definition of a fruit—the ripened ovary of a seed plant. Bad idea. The word ovary shuttered snack time and ended conversation. Michael’s taste for fruit soured for a solid week before his love of food triumphed and he was able to move beyond Webster’s definition. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”

Carol O’Casey—mother, author, scientist, pastor’s wife—goes on to unwrap the wonder of seeds—using biology, literature, personal experience, and scripture—and applying this to the believer’s life of faith. She concludes, “Often times, in order for us to blossom into the abundant life God has in store for us [just like the potential in the seed], we must accept our own spiritual brokenness—just as germination requires the seed coat to be broken. …

Carol-author-color-webCarol O’Casey

“Have you settled into dormancy? Are you lacking the life-giving water necessary to initiate the germination process? Do you long for an abundant, seed-coat-busting life? Abandon your dry and routine life to him. Risk heat. Risk exposure. Risk growth. And take heart. Jesus tells us, ‘Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds (John 12:24).’…

Mothers, whatever your age or that of your children, take Carol’s words to heart:

“Allow God to unleash his power in your life. Dream big. Grow great. Sprout where you are planted. And live. Abundantly.”*

~Catherine Lawton

*The quotations above are taken from the book, Unwrapping Wonder: Finding Hope in the Gift of Nature by Carol O’Casey. Copyright 2013. Used by permission.

Wonder-cover-smThis book can be purchased at http://amzn.com/0981892981

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Role-Reversal and Emotional Baggage

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in confessing our need, emotional needs, feeling inadequate, forgiving mom, frustration to freedom, God's healing love, letting go of anger, mother wounds, the healing journey

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Tags

authentic relationship, Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiveness, life stages, mother and daughter, relationships, Role reversal, unresolved hurt

Loritta Slayton

Loritta, author of the story “White Knuckles”

Loritta Slayton tells another story of mother-daughter role reversal.

“Little by little,” Loritta says, “more of those decisions that limited Mom’s independence were required…. Quite independent her entire life, this change was hard for her. I found it challenging to lead in the face of her resistance and frustration. I hated the friction it caused.”

Loritta’s upbringing wasn’t characterized by warm or demonstrative affection and trust. White-knuckled anger took hold of Loritta as the responsibility for her aging mother (and then her mother-in-law as well!) fell to her. Loritta says, “Mom had ways of bringing out my lack of patience…. I had emotional baggage to deal with and I didn’t know how.”

Loritta’s story, “White Knuckles,” is the last story in the book, Journeys to Mother Love, for a reason. She has a strong testimony of relational healing that hinged on forgiveness toward her mother and obedience to the Lord. The conclusion to her story makes a fitting conclusion to the entire book:

“And so I hope that you, the reader, will be encouraged to give God permission to loosen your fingers from any ‘white-knuckled’ grip. May you be encouraged to say, ‘yes.’ May you experience the joy of finding freedom in any relationship where you’ve let your emotions rule over your heart and life. … Don’t wait. Give God permission now and start your journey to freedom and love.”

Thank you, Loritta, for your example to us of honesty and courage and faith.

~Catherine Lawton

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IN the MIDDLE of THREE GENERATIONS

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by arcecil in frustration to freedom, generational patterns, leaving a legacy, the healing journey

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christian spirituality, Dream, Finding our identity, Peace and joy, Sandwich generation

3 chairs suspended

Photo: Alice Cecil

One night many years ago I had a dream. It was one of those rare dreams in which God spoke. It was an odd dream in the sense that it happened on a two-dimensional surface. However, the objects and people on the two-dimensional surface were three-dimensional. Picture a flat surface, like a piece of paper, with three chairs lined up near the bottom. I was sitting in the middle chair. To my left was my mother. To my right was a daughter. (Though I have three daughters, the female figure to my right in the dream was only revealed to me as “daughter,” not one particular daughter.)

When the dream began, I was talking with my mother, intently trying to communicate an idea to her, the nature of which was also not revealed. My mother did not respond, but turned away from me. I sat for a moment and then got up. The daughter said, “Where are you going?” I did not answer, but walked to my right and up the two-dimensional flat surface along the edge to the top. God was in the center at the top. I stopped at that top corner, turned and faced out. Then the dream ended.

As both mothers and daughters, we can lose sight of who we are. We are not our mothers, daughters or anyone else. Even in our relationship with God, we are in Christ (John 14:18-20), not absorbed into him. We are in Christ as the separate, unique individuals God made us to be. In our desire to please other people, we can attach our identity to them. When we do, we will damage our relationship with God and, ironically, render ourselves less effective to minister to the people in our lives.

To help us understand God’s desire for us, we can ask ourselves a series of questions: Do we want our daughters to function as unique, loving individuals? Or do we want them to be so caught up in their concern for us, for their children or for another person, that they lose sight of who they were meant to be as individuals? Do we want our daughters to live to please us or live to please God?

How then would God have us live out his desire that we be loving, unique individuals in Christ? Romans 14:17-18 answers: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and [then] approved to men.”

Our first focus is to please God. Then the door to the approval of people (our mothers and daughters included) will open; it will open when we serve Christ out of his imputed righteousness and in peace and joy. (I did not see very much peace and joy in me in the dream when I was sitting in the middle chair.)

Many of us, who are mothers, are in the middle now of three generations. We interact with the generation “to our left” and the generation “to our right.” It is our turn to witness the peace and joy of Romans 14:17-18 to our daughters, who will one day be in our position—in the middle chair.

~ A.R. Cecil

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Read the book, "Journeys to Mother Love"

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  • arcecil
    • The Imperfect Job of Mothering
    • Storing Away Christmas ~ THE GOD BOX
    • Who Am I?
    • THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT
    • STAIRCASE TO A BETTER PLACE AND TIME
    • What? You Can’t Stop Crying
  • ardisanelson
    • A Mother’s Day Gift to my Sons
    • Sharing our Stories in Community
    • A Grateful Lesson in Letting go of our Children
    • The Blessing of ‘Imperfect’ Children
    • “You’re Just Like Your Mother”
    • A Journey to Brother Love, Part 2
  • Catherine Lawton
    • We Come Trembling
    • New Beginnings
    • Living Wounds
    • Loneliness
    • What? You Can’t Stop Crying
    • Faith in the Birthing Room
  • finishingwell2
    • Mom’s Cooking
    • Always a Mother
    • Postscript to “Finishing Well”
    • Perfect Parenting
  • good2bfree
    • A Mother’s Legacy
    • Grace to Broken Mamas on Mother’s Day
  • guestmom
    • Forgiving Yourself — and Your Children
    • If Your Child is a Prodigal
    • Helicopter Mom, You’re Creating a Draft
  • Kerry Luksic
    • The Gift of Faith
  • kyleen228
    • Dreading Mother’s Day
    • “Mom-ness”
    • The Power of Sharing Your Deepest Secrets 
    • Adopted Siblings ~ A Special Closeness
    • Walking In Faith Through Adoption
    • Honesty about Our Struggles is the Best Way to Help Each Other
  • lorittaslayton
  • Christina
    • Grandma’s Apron
    • Much Ado about Nothing but Love
    • Mother Love
  • vernahsimms
    • A Letter to Mom
    • A Gift of Flowers
    • A Game of Love
    • Our Common Interests

Abortion Adoption a heart filled with love and hope Alzheimer's disease Aunt authentic relationship celebrate Child Child Jesus Children Christian novel Christian spirituality Christmas Christmastime Courage to be honest Death Dream Emotional and spiritual captivity Emotional and spiritual healing experiencing Christ Family Family traditions fathers day Finding our identity Forgiveness Forgiving yourself friendship future hope giving and receiving God's promises God the Father Grandparent Gratitude Grief Loss and Bereavement Healing love healing of memories Holidays Holy Week Home hope Jesus kids leaving home letting go life's upward path life and death life stages Mary milestones Ministry Modeling the faith Mom Factor Mother Mother's Day mother and daughter Mothering mother love motherly instincts no false guilt or shame Parenting Parenting styles Peace and joy personal discoveries Post-Abortion Healing Prayer Praying for our children relationships Sadness Sandwich generation Sewing smother love spirituality Thanksgiving unresolved hurt White Christmas Women's Issues

Adopted children challenges of motherhood childhood memories confessing our need emotional needs encouraging each other expectations family gatherings feeling inadequate forgiving mom forgiving yourself frustration to freedom generational patterns generations coming together God's healing love God as our parent Gratitude grief and loss healing after abortion importance of prayer Learning to appreciate Mom leaving a legacy letting go of anger losing mom too soon Motherhood mother wounds Parenting reach out and touch the healing journey when tragedy hits

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