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Journeys To Mother Love

~ Encouragement and healing in mother/child relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Category Archives: Motherhood

Faith in the Birthing Room

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's love and Mother love, importance of prayer, Motherhood

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Christian spirituality, Experiencing God, Family, Gratitude, life stages, Mother, mother and daughter, Praying for our children

   ChristinaAndBreanna

We see photos on Facebook of young mothers, with or without makeup, with perspiration-frazzled hair, holding a red, swaddled newborn. The new mom smiles. Proud hubby hovers. Grandparents flash cameras and send out announcements on cell phones.

I’ve experienced this first-hand. 24 months ago I was present as my daughter gave birth. Her pregnancy had complications, the doctor was concerned for safety of both mother and child; but finally a healthy baby made her entrance; and oh, what joy and thankfulness we felt.

What could be more awe-inspiring than the birth of a new life? Nothing compares to the expectancy, intensity, and thrill of witnessing a baby enter this world with wiggles and cries. You can almost hear the flutter of angel wings and the melody of heavenly bells ringing as the Creator gives breath to a new little person full of promise. When the child is desired and welcomed with love, the birthing room almost becomes a holy sanctuary.

As I stood by during my daughter’s labor, feeling helpless—then as I helped during delivery by holding one of my daughter’s knees—I was breathing prayers and praises. My daughter was too absorbed in breathing and pushing to do much praying herself.

But since she started carrying this child—when she had chosen not to accept the doctor’s offer of “terminating the risky pregnancy”—she had been putting her hope and trust in God’s help. During those nine months we watched a tumor shrink enough to allow room for the baby to grow; then it moved out of the way to allow the baby to enter the birth canal.

Awareness of the Lord’s presence and help bonded our little family group. We appreciated the clinical efficiency of the attending physician, interns and nurses. I couldn’t help thinking, though, how wonderful it would be if everyone in the room was a believer and open about their faith and dependence on the Lord. I’d like to have soft, beautiful worship music playing, someone gently reciting a Psalm, all participants aware of, and responsive to, the Lord’s presence; bathing the process in prayer; welcoming the child with praise and thanks to her Creator.

That would be heavenly. “Heavenly” is probably not how anyone would describe a hospital room. But God was present and He showed Himself mighty and loving. The medical personnel—whether Christian believers or not—were used of God as He answered prayer and gave us a beautiful, healthy baby.

~Catherine Lawton

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Hannah Whitall Smith Comparing God’s Love to Mother Love

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by Catherine Lawton in encouraging each other, generations coming together, God as our parent, God's healing love, God's love and Mother love, Motherhood, Parenting, Remembering Mother

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God the Father, Modeling the faith, mother and daughter, Our children see God in us, Parenting, Sacrificial love

“I do long to be to my children a little faint picture of what God is,” wrote Hannah Whitall Smith to her daughter. This 19-Century writer of classic books of devotion, such as The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, kept up personal correspondence with many people through letters. Many of her letters are published in the book, The Christian’s Secret of a Holy Life. Here’s a letter Hannah Whitall Smith wrote to her daughter Mary:

Your loving praise is very sweet to me, even though I may think you look through eyes made kinder by love than they by rights ought to be. If only you can learn some little sense of what God is from your thoughts of me, I shall be more than content. I think I have learned more about the character of God from remembering what my own father and mother were to me than in almost any other way. And I do long to be to my children a little faint picture of what God is.

O great heart of God! whose loving

Cannot hindered be, nor crossed;

Will not weary, will not even

In our death itself be lost!

Love divine! of such great loving

Only mothers know the cost,

Cost of love, that, past all loving,

Gave itself to save the lost.

I think I understand this.

As mothers, we have the opportunity to understand God’s self-giving love and know a little of the cost of love.

Our perseverance in loving at all costs will provide our children a clearer picture of the great, self-giving love that God has for them.

~Catherine Lawton

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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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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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When Your Mother Believes in You

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in childhood memories, encouraging each other, generational patterns, leaving a legacy, Mother's Day, Motherhood, Remembering Mother

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Finding our identity, giving and receiving, Mother, mother and daughter, Mother's Day, Mothering

Cathy-Jeanne-Beach

Here I’m making sand castles on the beach with my mother when I was a young child. She always encouraged my dreams.

Having a child defines us for the rest of our lives…. Each mother-child relationship teaches us our limitations and our strengths. It changes us in constantly unfolding ways and entwines us in the unpredictable mystery of another life….

Our mothers are our first teachers, and we teach others the same lessons we learn from them. As a child, when your mother believes in you, you believe in yourself, and when that happens there is nothing you can’t do. As a mother, that is the greatest gift we can give to a child.

–from She Walks in Beauty : A Woman’s Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy

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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

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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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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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