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Journeys To Mother Love

~ Encouragement and healing in mother/child relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Category Archives: show love by serving

Filling the Jar with Rocks

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in encouraging each other, Gratitude, reach out and touch, show love by serving

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

authentic relationship, Family, friendship, giving and receiving, Gratitude, life and death, relationships

 Rocks in a Jar

Ever since my “invest in people” nudge from the Lord referenced in “Walking My Mother Home,” I’ve paid more attention to those little nudges. Following that first nudge has led to dramatic changes in my life including my friendship with Rosa, Pedro’s mother, and my one-on-one investing in others who God puts on my path.

This is the story of a recent people investment that had profound results.

I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when I got a call from Sandra, a new friend my husband and I met at a marriage workshop we recently attended in California. My surprise turned to sadness when I heard her brother had passed away. Sandra had dropped everything to fly to Washington State to see him before he died. On that short trip she hadn’t had time to meet with me, but would be back in town for the memorial service.

A few weeks passed and I was surprised to see that the memorial service was scheduled at the country club a mile from my house. Initially Sandra had hoped we would connect over a cup of coffee, but her time was filled with family obligations. That was perfectly understandable.

Regardless of that, I knew I would go to the memorial service. I didn’t know Sandra’s brother. I didn’t know her family. I barely knew her. Yet after an intensive weekend together in couples’ counseling sessions, we already had a heart connection. I didn’t consider not going.

After hugs on my arrival, she seated me next to a relative and bravely took her position up front with the immediate family. As the service started, I felt a nudge to record the proceedings. That isn’t totally out of character for me. My digital recorder is an indispensable tool for my writing. I didn’t really give it a second thought.

Family members read letters filled with sweet stories and memories of Sandra’s brother. The chaplain shared a story (author unknown) about sand, pebbles and rocks filling up a jar. The point of the metaphor was that the rocks are the important things in our lives—the people and things we can’t replace—and that we should make them a priority. If we fill our lives (the jar) with the unimportant things in life (the sand and pebbles) we won’t have room for the rocks. It was a fitting reflection to end the service.

When Sandra and I connected after the service, she mentioned how disappointed she was that her elderly mother couldn’t attend the service. She so wanted to have the service recorded but there were family objections to that.

“Really? That’s so sad,” I said. I felt goosebumps as I remembered I had recorded the service. I confessed my transgression to her. She was thrilled and started to cry. Sandra proceeded to tell me how anxious she had been about that for the past few weeks. My recording was answered prayer for her. It was a kiss from above and a reminder of God’s amazing love for us.

Sandra and I stole some time together on the deck of the clubhouse overlooking the golf course, basking in the warmth of the sun. We caught up on our lives, prayed for each other and reflected on how perfectly God had filled our jars on that very day with what was truly important—time together and the simple gift of following a nudge to invest in people.

What are you filling your jar with?

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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A Letter to my Mom

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in God's healing love, Learning to appreciate Mom, leaving a legacy, mother wounds, show love by serving

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, giving and receiving, life and death, Modeling the faith

Ardis and her mother in the hospital

Ardis with her mother on the first trip she describes in her story, “Walking my Mother Home” in Journeys to Mother Love

Reading each of the stories in “Journeys to Mother Love” gave me a glimpse into the lives and pain of eight other women who have allowed Christ to bring healing into their hearts. I love reading stories like these because they impart hope and inspiration that each of us can connect with or apply to our lives.

One of my takeaways was from the story written by Verna Hills Simms, “Take Care of Your Mother.” I was touched by how she writes a letter to her deceased mother every year on her mother’s birthday. I thought it was a wonderful idea, and decided to do the same thing. With the anniversary of my mother’s passing a few weeks ago, I chose to do it in honor of that occasion.

Dear Mom,

It has been two years since the day the Lord took you home to be with Him. I still marvel how God perfectly orchestrated the events leading up to your death and the identity revelations He gave me as a result. I know you have been watching all of these things from above. I sense your overwhelming joy at how I have embraced the parts of me that mirror your personality and faith in the Lord.

After you passed away, it was hard for me to adapt and internalize all of the changes. I look back now and can hardly recognize the person I was before. Rosa and Pedro are a regular part of my life now. It is like I have found a long lost sister, and adopted Pedro as a son. I will finally meet Rosa face to face in Spain this summer. I know you will be there with me in spirit too.

I know you are at peace where you are. I delight in the thought that Carmen, Rosa’s mother, was waiting with open arms to meet you there as well. Your family expanded in heaven the day you died as mine did here on earth with Rosa and Pedro.

Mom, I know the months, weeks and days that passed after your stroke must’ve seemed like an eternity to you, not being able to speak, to feed yourself and needing total care just for routine bodily functions. I wish I could’ve helped more and been by your side more than just those few visits. I wanted you to know that those visits were so special to me—to be able to dote on you and help care for you like you did for me over fifty years ago when I was young. I know you loved me and did all you could for me.

Your suffering was for a purpose as it gave me an opportunity to see myself as God sees me and eliminated my fears related to your mental illness. That was not the legacy the Lord destined for you to hand down to me. I am mentally healthy now. And the Lord has helped me to embrace your sensitivity and faith as the legacies I want to impart to others.

Thank you, Mom, for your sacrifices and your final gift of unconditional love.  I look forward to the day we are reunited in eternity. 

Love,
Ardis

~ Ardis Nelson

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A Friendship Born in Sorrow

06 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in encouraging each other, God's healing love, importance of prayer, reach out and touch, show love by serving, the healing journey

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

a heart filled with love and hope, authentic relationship, Emotional and spiritual healing, friendship, future hope, Prayer

RosaRosa

As mentioned in my story, “Walking My Mother Home,” during the time I was walking through healing in my relationship with my mother I developed a long-distance friendship with Rosa, who lives in Spain. Rosa’s mother, Carmen, passed away a few weeks before my mother. The connection with Rosa led me, a Protestant, to a Catholic Church to pray on bended knee and release my mother to the Lord. It was at this exact time that Carmen’s funeral was proceeding in Spain.

Rosa’s and my relationship was born out of sorrow, nurtured by prayer, and sealed in love. It was perfectly timed to help me heal the void and loss in my heart caused by never really knowing my mother as a person and not being able to have a relationship with her. Her death brought out a lot of feelings and the Lord has been faithful to heal and give me a fresh start.

Rosa, though, was close to her mother. Two years later, Rosa is still grieving the loss of her mother, Carmen, who was a significant part of Rosa’s life. Carmen was the family matriarch, surrounded by a large Catholic family that loved her. The loss was great not only for Rosa, but for Rosa’s father and the rest of the family as well. While my burden is light, Rosa’s is still heavy at times as she alternates live-in care giving with her sister for their aging father. One way or another, life goes on for both of us.

My relationship with Rosa has become a beautiful testimony to the legacy of mother love and of the Lord’s love for us. Our lives intersected in a painful and poignant way. When I first heard of her mother’s terminal illness, I knew God wanted me to come alongside Rosa in her grief. It was not easy to be so vulnerable with her—someone I never met, who lived 5,300 miles away, spoke a different language and belonged to the faith (my mother’s faith) that I had turned my back on many years ago. I feared rejection. Yet God called me out of my comfort zone to extend a heart of compassion to her. And I’m glad I did!

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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Emerging From the Cocoon

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by ardisanelson in mother wounds, reconciliation, show love by serving, the healing journey

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Tags

mother and daughter, personal discoveries, Women's Issues

a butterfly on flowers

(Photo: C. Lawton)

When the contributing authors of Journeys to Mother Love were asked to write posts for this blog, I was thrilled. I had been blogging for a year and felt comfortable with the format. I was finding my voice and believed that God was giving me a story to share and point people to Him. But when it comes to writing about motherly themes for this blog, I feel somewhat lost and unequipped.

Less than two years now since my mother passed, the healing of my mother-wound is still somewhat fresh. I speak openly about what happened in the process, but I am still grieving the loss incurred by the fact that I didn’t really have a mother all the years that she was living. The mothering I didn’t get has had a profound effect on who I am today.

As described in my story, “Walking My Mother Home,” tremendous healing came as the Lord led me to minister to my mother in her final years of life. While I feel more spiritually alive and emotionally whole, I know there are still parts of me that are small, that missed having a mother’s love. It opens up from time and time like a gaping hole in my heart. Thankfully those moments are becoming few and far between, and I tend to recover more quickly.

Before my mother’s stroke in July 2009, I didn’t give her much thought. We weren’t completely estranged, but I really didn’t feel like I had a  mother. Since my mother was schizophrenic virtually all my life, I have no idea what went on in her mind, but I imagine she was sane enough to long for a loving daughter. In God’s infinite mercy and wisdom, that is what He gave her in the last eighteen months of her life. I didn’t know what I had missed, not having a mother-daughter relationship, until God gave me the joy of loving and caring for her.

Years ago when she gave birth to her only daughter, she couldn’t have fathomed the painful years that were ahead. Her life seemed normal. I am sure she had dreams for me and my brothers. Somewhere along the line she let go of those dreams and replaced them with fantasies fed by her mental illness.

Today, though, my mother is happily smiling at me from across my desk where I keep a photo of her, and from heaven above, with motherly pride for the woman that is now emerging from her cocoon like the butterfly that graces the cover of Journeys to Mother Love. I am like that butterfly, transformed from a shy little girl unsure of her own fate and sanity, into a woman who is more confident and free to be all that God is calling me to be. I’m even finding my own voice!

~ Ardis A. Nelson

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