Tag Archives: authentic relationship

Generations of Blessing

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in generational patterns, God as our parent, Gratitude, importance of prayer, Influence of Grandparents, leaving a legacy, the healing journey

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Grandchild-1A few years ago, when my daughter-in-law was pregnant with our first grandchild, I sat in church as she and our son participated in the worship team—David playing guitar and Hannah singing. I thought of the baby Hannah was carrying—just past her first trimester. I watched the parents-to-be standing before the Lord and the congregation pouring forth the praise, proclaiming their faith with all their energies, their hearts, their voices.

It dawned on me that the baby—who by now had formed arms and legs—would be sensing this devotion and somehow experiencing the glory and presence of God.

Gratitude and joy rose within me, and the Lord assured my heart that His hand was already on that child as it has been on past generations; that the devotion and faithfulness of the parents would bear fruit in the children, again.

When my mother carried me, she and Daddy—just 20 and 25 years old—were preaching and praying and singing and piano playing. Honestly, I think the “language” of music and prayer were the first languages with which I became familiar.

Twenty-four years later I carried David and, during those nine months, often sat at the piano playing classical music, church music, choir music, and quartet music. My husband was singing; we were often in the midst of praying. And though we had struggles within and without, our faith was bedrock, rooted in “the ground of our being,” deeper even than the dark, moist bed of new life, the womb.

And now it comes to me like a revelation that God is continuing His faithfulness, His friendship with us—to the next generation, to our grandchildren! What a reward, what a hope, what a comfort, what a joy!

Alone at home the next day, Monday, I thought on this again, and the Holy Spirit moved my heart to rejoice and weep and pray for this new life. A sort of sing-song prayer came to me, and I wrote the words out in poem form:

God Bless the Baby
~
Oh, sweet baby,
Little baby Lawton,
Baby, do you hear it?
Hear your mama singing?
Hear your daddy praying?
Baby, do you hear them?
Blessed little baby.
~
God bless Hannah;
Bless her little baby.
Let it hear the singing,
Hear her heart’s devotion;
Make the Maker real,
Present every moment.
~
God bless David;
Bless his little baby.
Let it hear the praying,
Hear the strong assurance,
Feel the Father’s nearness,
There for His baby.
~
Oh, sweet baby,
Little baby Lawton,
Baby, do you hear it?
Hear your daddy singing?
Hear your mama praying?
Baby, do you hear them?
God bless the baby.
~
Amen.

~

–Catherine Lawton

Run, Run as Fast as You Can

21 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in childhood memories, confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, generational patterns, God's healing love, Influence of Grandparents, letting go of anger, the healing journey

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File:Gingerbread landscape.jpg

photo:Orsotron (Wikipedia)

Sunny days must have consistently won over rainy ones when I was a school-aged child because most of my memories are rooted in the long treks after the three o’clock dismissal. I would hightail it home, taking every shortcut through the backyards that stood between the elementary school and my front door.

“Run, run as fast as you can,” I would tell my feet, as I was distancing myself from those immature children who picked favorites and then picked on those they had deemed inferior.

There was no doubt whether or not I was on the list of the popular kids, but I never was ridiculed because I made myself invisible, an ability I learned from the dynamics in my home. This skill was utilized in almost every social circle. Go to school, do a little work; come home and see how my mother was doing; that routine suited me very well until it dawned on me that I could not remain invisible forever and survive.

One day when school was dismissed, the bright blue sky suddenly turned black and then proceeded to release every drop of its accumulated precipitation. “Run, run as fast as you can,” I told my feet. “Run to get out of the rain.”

At home I found my mother dozing on the day bed in the den while the soap operas told the sordid intermingling of the lives of beautiful people. I stopped in the bathroom and rubbed my wet hair with a towel. A glance in the mirror did not reveal a beautiful person, and I couldn’t blame the rain. Here at the onset of my teen years, I was faced with a great dilemma: I desperately wanted to fit in, but I was afraid.

Dropping my wet clothes on the floor, I pulled on a casual outfit which included my favorite sweatshirt. In it, I felt secure. Then I slid onto the couch that sat adjacent to my mother’s bed.

As I was my mother’s companion for TV’s “Guiding Light,” I imagined myself to be my father’s silent confidant, ever ready to pour out words of encouragement and comfort whenever he would choose to turn and acknowledge me. Something sad was brewing in his heart, and I wanted to help him. But he never chose to confide in me. Where was he, so deep in thought? Was he replaying the time he spent in World War II and the unbelievable atrocities he saw there?

I felt powerless to solve my parents’ problems. So I determined someday to lift them up on the shoulders of my happiness. Such was the grand, warped plan of my childhood.

As I waited for that bright future, I found some semblance of relationship with my maternal grandmother. I was drawn to her orderly home and gentle, disciplined spirit. And she was religious. While the entire extended family went to church every Sunday, she was the only one who put voice to her faith; she was the one who lived out the gospel with steadfast endurance. Grandmother had no time for moping. She hit the linoleum running in the morning. She had her share of difficulties, but she never let them define her.

Time slowly passed and, with great delight, I left the teen years behind. At twenty I was preparing to leave for the city to fulfill my destiny. But first I visited Grandmother. I nervously chatted away, keeping the conversation light and funny. All that talking, however, took an unexpected, woeful turn. Out tumbled many fears with a hint of the underlying anger. Then, since I didn’t like what I was hearing myself say, I iced it over by backtracking with remarks that served only as a layer of guilt.

There is no hope for me, I groaned within my spirit. Grandmother, however, intently listened without interrupting, like a psychologist who is assessing her client’s situation. When I finished, silence filled the space between us and I wanted to flee. But then Grandmother spoke and her words revealed the strength behind her small frame.

“We must take up our cross,” she simply said.

Our cross? What does the cross have to do with my plans for a life where everything is tidy, happy, and successful? What was Grandmother talking about?

While I could not make the connection of Christ’s cross to my life, Grandmother’s statement sank deep within my soul where it lay dormant for many years.

Grandmother lived to see me marry a fine man and have one daughter. My plans for a good life were set in motion. I kept our home immaculate. During the holidays, it looked like a Christmas card. Every spring and summer the flower beds declared: “Care and love reside within.” Boundless energy undergirded the dream. As long as I worked hard and pretended to be happy, surely my heart would catch up with my outward persona. However, deep down inside there was a faint echo: “Not right! Not right! Something’s missing.”

Then the second daughter was born. After one month of caring for the baby that would not settle, she was diagnosed with cancer. Fourteen months passed, and the surgery and radiation treatments did not fulfill their intended purpose; the cancer was back and now in her bone marrow. Chemotherapy was the new, last hope.

“Run, run as fast as you can,” I read to the older sister. “You can’t catch me. I’m the gingerbread man.”

Run, run to be there for the five-year-old sibling. Run, run to take care of the house, to look after the baby, to keep all of her appointments. … Run, run, I was running out of steam.

There were many rounds of chemotherapy. She received a treatment every day for one week, every third week, for two years. After one of the toddler’s chemotherapy treatments, I was sitting beside her on my big bed that had been prepared for her body’s violent reaction to the toxins. Several hours of vomiting and diarrhea would soon begin. While she slept, I read a book about an encounter a man had with Jesus when he was in prayer. (The book came into my life because I was searching for something/anything to help me cope.) I put the book down and let the pent-up tears flow. I was so sad. More than sad, I was angry. In my mind in that moment, the sleeping child beside me was not going to have the chance for a full life.

“I’ve done everything I know to do,” I told the ceiling. “It’s up to you now!”

Of course, I was not calling out to the ceiling, but to our heavenly Father. The prayer was a two-pronged one: one prong for the recovery of my sick child and one for me. I was tired, and I was lost. I was confused, and my best efforts had failed. I was so tired. “Run, run,” I was tired of running. I could no longer outrun God.

At that very moment of the prayer, Someone else started running. “Run, run,” God the Father was running as fast as he could, for he saw one of his children turn and start coming toward him (see Luke 15:20, the account of the Prodigal Son).

Jesus entered my life that day thirty-one years ago. The experience of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is as real to me as the physical objects around me. The sick child survived and is now a grown, healthy, married woman. I no longer run aimlessly. God is the mainspring of my life. I now understand Grandmother’s response to the fact that the cross is the answer for my life. In order to bring glory to God, I have had to take up my cross daily and follow him. But with him, my burden is light because I am held up by his everlasting arms.

Did my life turn out to be perfect? Since that day on my daughter’s sick bed, have I lived “happily-ever-after”? I can only be honest and say, “No, of course not.” Am I perfect person? No, of course, not. But, there is a huge difference between the woman who was running to make a good life and the woman who now looks to God for the answers in her life.

~A.R. Cecil

Can a Child of Unhappy Parents Become a Happy Adult?

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, God as our parent, God's healing love, rejecting lies, the healing journey

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A mother holds up her child.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TRUE HAPPINESS

Recently I was given the honor of preparing and presenting my testimony at the Christian Women’s Club. The club gives each speaker 25 minutes. Reading the entire story straight from the book would take well over an hour. I would have to condense my story. Through this painful process of condensing, the Lord revealed to me a significant personal truth. Perhaps I have been the only one who did not see what was between the lines. I probably needed someone to say, “Oh, I see what you are saying.” And I then I could have responded by asking, “What? Tell me what you see.”

Since no one has been that brave, God decided to step in. I can picture him now, thinking this through: I’ll orchestrate a circumstance that will pull the personal truth out of the text! She has had a glimmer of this fact before, but now she is ready for a deeper revelation.

Our Lord knew I was ready for the bigger picture. So, I began: delete, delete, and delete some more (Oh, some of my favorite parts are falling on the cutting room floor!). Then, I added a few sentences to make up for all the deleted information. First a quote from the book: “As I was my mother’s companion for TV’s ‘Guiding Light,’ I was my father’s silent confidante, ever ready to pour out words of encouragement and comfort whenever he chose to turn and acknowledge me.” Now for the condensed add-on: “As a child, I was powerless to help my mother and father find happiness. So, I determined to someday bring happiness to them. I would lift then up on the shoulders of my happiness.”

Wow! Really? Why didn’t someone point this out to me? So, that’s what I have been doing all these years! I took on the responsibility for my parents’ happiness (and you can imagine how that life-long, self-imposed commitment played out!). Innocent children have an innate, unconditional love for their parents. They want their mother and father to be happy. They experience deep sadness when their mother and/or father is sad.

Recently I went to the downtown part of our city to take care of my mother’s business. She is in a nursing home and, since her money has been spent down, she is on Medicaid. I lingered in a large room with many other people who were also waiting to be escorted to one of the cubicles where they, like me, would speak with their case-worker. All of us, young and old, had a need for financial assistance from the government. At the end of the room were double doors that opened into a hallway. I could hear a voice from around the corner. It was a child’s voice. He was pleading with his mother. He kept repeating the same sentence. “I love you, mommy. I love you, mommy.” I did not hear the mother answer him. Was the child trying to console his mother? Was the mother displaying stress and sadness? (The reasons for being in that place are stressful and sad ones.)

I wanted to get up and go find the child, kneel down in front of him, and say, “I love you. God loves you.” If the situation I overheard was a sample of the child’s relationship with his mother, I cannot help but think: Where is their relationship heading? This child will probably turn from his mother one day in anger (and his anger may be expressed as depression. Once I heard a definition for depression, which spoke of it as being “anger turned inward”).

I am not suggesting we present a happy, go-lucky spirit with our children. That persona is unreal, and our children are as quick to pick up on it as they are the forlorn one. Rather, my message to mothers (and fathers) everywhere is that they can find true happiness in an authentic relationship with God through Jesus Christ. There is absolutely no substitute for this road to true happiness.

I just wish I could kneel in front of every child in the world and say, “I love you. God loves you.” However, we can each kneel in front of our children and say those words. We can live out the life of peace and a quiet joy. I know without any doubt that God the Father loves me. He bends down to me every day and says, “I love you. I love you.” My journey would have been greatly condensed if I had understood this truth earlier, but it has been a long, rambling road with very much between the lines.

To young mothers, I want to say: “Recognize God’s love, respond to it, teach it, and witness it to your children. It is the only genuine gift you can give them.” I am still a mother, and now I am a grandmother. I am real with my children and grandchildren. They have seen me cry in sadness and display justifiable anger on occasion. However, they see someone who is able to accept life’s many bumps in the road because the Father’s love has been realized. I am sure they can hear the echo of the Father’s words: “I love your mother. I love your grandmother.” We can give our children and grandchildren the freedom of not needing to bear the responsibility for our happiness; we can witness the presence in our lives of God, who is the source of our true happiness.

~A.R. (Alice) Cecil

p.s. (I recommend a book by Martyn Lloyd-Jones with the title: True Happiness.)

Mothering Inadequacies

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, family gatherings, feeling inadequate, generations coming together, God's healing love, mother wounds, Parenting, the healing journey

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Rocio's Art

Ardis received this drawing from Roxio, one of the children she met in Spain.

I was 33 years old when I had my first child. Like many women, I felt unsure of myself and ill-equipped to be a mother. Unlike many, though, I believed I had good reason for my misgivings.

My mother had a nervous breakdown when I was six. She was still able to function in her role as a housewife, but it left her emotionally unavailable to me. For whatever reason, she rarely spent time with me in the kitchen or preparing me for my role as a wife or mother.

As I grew up and went out on my own, I wondered whether I would ever be a mother or have kids of my own. I never had a strong desire to be around children. I didn’t have the longing, like I hear some women express, to have children to feel complete.

After ten years of marriage my husband and I welcomed our first child into the world. My heart was stretched in new ways as my love poured out on my newborn son. My life revolved around him—struggling to nurse, on-demand and nighttime feedings,  carrying him in a sling, etc. My love grew, yet my fear of mothering inadequacy hung over me, landing me back on my career path after the first year.

Then three years ago—thirteen years after the birth of our second son—my heart was stretched again when we opened our home to Pedro, a Spanish exchange student. This last summer, during my six-week stay in Spain, I was welcomed with open arms into Pedro’s family.  His home was my home.  His family was my family.

Although Pedro is an only child, I knew he has a large extended family and is very family-oriented. I’d heard their names, laughed at his family stories, and prayed for them in times of trouble.

I knew I’d be meeting many of Pedro’s relatives. I so wanted to put aside my fears of inadequacy. I wanted to make a favorable impression on Pedro’s younger cousins. I wanted to be able to bridge the language barrier.

These children didn’t really know much of the story (told in Journeys to Mother Love) behind why I was there. They didn’t know how our families were connected in grief with the passing of their grandmother. They didn’t know or understand about the healing of my mother-wound. All they knew was that I was the American host mother when Pedro visited Seattle.

It was genuinely difficult for me at first to meet these young kids. I was very much out of my comfort zone. I watched as Pedro and his parents engaged them with tickling and other silly antics. Laughter permeated the rooms of their flat in Madrid. I, on the other hand, was paralyzed inside by my lingering fear of mothering inadequacy. Initially I stuck to what was safe for me, communicating with the English-speaking adults.

My saving grace with the children was the gifts I brought with me from America—Beanie Babies for everyone. My gifts imparted the sense of love and gratitude I had for this family. It was the start that I needed to overcome my fears of connecting with the children. In time, I felt more comfortable and was able to bond in more natural ways.

When we accept Jesus as our Savior, God adopts us into His family. He has a way of putting people in our lives to help us heal the broken parts of us. My Spanish family has been that for me in so many ways. It started with Pedro, then to Rosa, his mother. It has grown to his father, his aunts and uncles, and his cousins. I met 26 relatives in all.

I do still have some doubts about my ability to mother my own children—especially as I’m learning how to parent a child with ADD. But in God’s goodness for the summer of 2013, I know I was loved by these children. I hope they will remember me in the years to come as they grow up. I know I will treasure the memories I had with them, and integrate that as a way to overcome any future fears of mothering inadequacy.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

Light Shining into the Darkness

08 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, emotional needs, grief and loss, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Gadly Plain view

In relationships between husband and wife, father and daughter, mother and child, it can come as a shock to realize that—though we love and are loved—though we share a bond that unites us—we are each of us separate, individual, sometimes even, painfully, alone. Most of the time we seek and find comfort and consolation in the knowledge that the other is there, or will be there, and we aren’t alone. But if you have ever lost a close loved one to death then you know the feeling of finality, separation, other-ness, of no-more-ness that can choke the consolation out of your being.

This feeling is described well in the new novel, Gadly Plain by J. Michael Dew. The 12-year-old girl named Spring-baby loses her father to death and emotionally she falls into a chasm of sadness that “bullies her, keeps her wilted, sober.” At least she shares grief with her mother. But then her mother abandons her (because “Mom needs time for Mom”).

When the author was nine years old his own father got sick and died. The story of Gadly Plain is his artistic expression of his own inexplicable trauma and the answers he found after many years of searching for meaning in the whole experience of human history, personal life and death.

Mr. Dew is a believer and the creative vision he shares in this imaginative story is honest about human weakness and suffering, but rooted in truth and hope. The book begins with a quote: “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11).

The story itself is as earthy as a body in a casket, a girl in a tree, a donkey in a pasture, hay in a barn, an old lady smoking in a bathroom, a young woman driving aimlessly across the countryside, and a faithful farm hand giving a reassuring hug.

I challenge you, as a mother or a daughter, to face your own aloneness, watch and listen for the messengers the Lord of hope may be sending to you; and to help you do that, read the book Gadly Plain: A Novel.

098189299X

~Catherine Lawton

When God Closes a Door, He Opens a Window

13 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by in emotional needs, encouraging each other, grief and loss, importance of prayer, losing mom too soon, reach out and touch, the healing journey

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Open Window Season

(Photo credit: Chiot’s Run)

In the movie with Julie Andrews and James Garner, One Special Night, Garner’s character’s wife is dying of Alzheimer’s. Julie Andrews’ character’s husband has recently died. By the end of the movie, both are widowed; and circumstances – filled with both humor and pathos – bring the two together for a sweet, “second chance.” I am reminded of a Julie Andrews line in The Sound of Music: “When God closes a door, he opens a window.”

A subplot of One Special Night deals with Garner’s two young-adult daughters, how they grieve differently and separately and both feel they need their mother. By the end of the movie they have learned to appreciate each others’ differences and find in each other something of their mother, to give and receive from each other the acceptance, wisdom, support, and caring they would have had from their mom.

This reminded me of my sister, Beverly, and me at the time our mother died. Both in our twenties, we dealt with her illness and death somewhat differently. I remember feeling that I was losing all the motherly love and support for which I still felt a strong need. I said to my father, “What will Bev and I do without Mother’s prayers? We depend on her prayers.”

Daddy’s reply was, “You girls can start praying for each other more, depend on each other more.”

It took a few years for me to appreciate, and for my sister and me to realize, his prophetic words. Gradually we did come to see something of Mother in each other, to “bear one another’s burdens,” to be a real, spiritual and emotional support to each other. We both miss Mother. But we are together in that missing. I thank God that our loss and grief didn’t drive us apart but brought us closer.

There’s no doubt God closed a grace-filled door in our lives when he took our mother. But he provided a window of sisterly love through which his love and grace and sweet fellowship flow like sunshine into my soul.

~Catherine Lawton

A Match Made in Heaven

21 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in encouraging each other, generations coming together, the healing journey

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Sanctuary of A Angustia, Betanzos, Galicia (Spain)

When I submitted the manuscript for “Walking My Mother Home,” I knew that the story between me, Rosa and Pedro, my Spanish family, was far from over. The healing I received when my mother passed away created a beautiful bond between Rosa and I that will last the rest of my life. What is so unique about this relationship is that Rosa and I don’t speak the same language, we live 5,300 miles apart, and we have never met. But that is about to change.

Next week, almost three years to the day we welcomed Pedro into our home that first summer, I will step on Spanish soil and meet Rosa, my kindred spirit and sister in Christ. It will be the beginning of the trip of a lifetime for me—six weeks in Spain.

Over the past two years, since Pedro was last in our home, Rosa and I have continued to communicate via email and online translators. We have both looked forward to the day when we’ll meet in person. Rosa has been learning English to facilitate our communications. I have been writing and blogging more about this story and our relationship across the miles.

One of the key pieces of the story that materialized shortly after my mother died was the role that Pedro’s music played in our relationship. As I mentioned in “Walking My Mother Home,” Pedro played the piano while he was in our home. I also mentioned that my oldest son was a gifted pianist. This is significant because Pedro was placed in our home precisely because his musical interest matched with my two sons’ musical abilities. It was a match made in heaven.

Pedro played the piano every day he was in our home. My son played Beethoven, Chopin and other classical composers’ music. Pedro was interested in cinema and played American movie soundtracks to films like “The Sound of Music” and “The Sting.” I didn’t know it at the time, but interspersed with his music, he played a few of his own compositions.

A few months after Pedro returned to Spain, he sent our family a song he composed and dedicated to us: “Seattle”. This song, and others he started to send me, were salve to my aching heart as I grieved over the death of my mother. His music has become a staple of my life as he writes songs that mark the special occasions in our lives—my own personal soundtrack so to speak.

One thing led to another and I soon found myself partnering with this musical protégé. Our joint love for music soon developed into my becoming Pedro’s music manager, the creation of a professional CD of his music, and worldwide exposure on iTunes and other online music sites. That exposure paid off a few months ago when Pedro’s music was noticed by a Spanish film production company. The trailer to Pedro’s debut movie score was released earlier this month. None of this movie business was even a possibility when I booked my flights to Spain, but now in God’s perfect timing, I will be in Spain for the release of his short film, “Thirst for Love”, in July.

The focus of my trip from the start was meeting Rosa and being able to connect with her one-on-one about our mutual experience of losing our mothers—from different parts of the world. I know God will honor and bless us as we take this next step of healing and support in our relationship. We will fumble through our language barrier at first, but I trust our non-verbal communication and love will override those obstacles.

Pedro spent two summers in my home immersed in American culture and language as part of a short term exchange program. In the summer of 2013, it will be my turn to be the exchange student. And I’m going to meet Rosa…. Truly a match made in heaven.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

Relationships Can Be Complicated

07 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by 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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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.

Role-Reversal and Emotional Baggage

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by 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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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

Filling the Jar with Rocks

29 Monday Apr 2013

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

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 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

Journeying Together: A Group Interview

15 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in childhood memories, confessing our need, encouraging each other, God's healing love, the healing journey

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Meadow-flowers-sillouette copy
All nine of us participated in this group interview, answering questions posed by Christina Slike, marketing director at Cladach Publishing. We’ve enjoyed getting to know each other better through this process, and so, we hope, will our readers.

INTERVIEW

 

1. Did you laugh or cry, or both, while you were writing your story?a pink butterfly

Ellen Cardwell: Surprisingly, I didn’t do either. Rather, writing the story released something inside that needed to come out. I feel lighter now whenever Mom comes to mind.

Treva Brown: I completely did both. I also felt anger, but was able to fully release it quickly.

Ardis Nelson: I went away to a secluded camp so I could focus on writing and prayer. I cried at times. Now my tears are tears of joy.

Kerry Luksic: In writing this story, I had plenty of tears. My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s eight years ago. It was hard to accept that there’s no cure and that it’s progressive–Mom would only get worse through each heartbreaking stage. But in sharing this story, the tears I shed were healing for me.

Loritta Slayton: I don’t think I did either, but I felt the emotions again–the upset, the struggle and the joy of what God accomplished in me that I couldn’t do for myself.

Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton: I always cry when I write about God’s grace in giving me two beautiful adopted children. It reminds me afresh of his mercy and love.

a pink butterfly2. What do you especially relate to in one or more of the other women’s stories? 

A.R. (Alice) Cecil: I can relate to all the other authors in JOURNEYS TO MOTHER LOVE. We all found the only way to healing is through Jesus Christ, and we all want to help others by sharing our experience.

Catherine Lawton: Treva Brown tells of how her mother died even younger than mine did (and by much more violent circumstances). I relate to her regret over some of the words she had said to her mother, and wishing she had said certain other words before it was too late.

Ellen: The last part of Loritta Slayton’s story, “White Knuckles,” took me back to when my mother needed my help and our roles were reversed. God encouraged and enabled her to let go of hurt feelings and journey down the path to love.

Treva: In “Walking My Mother Home” Ardis Nelson wrote, “I was embracing the parts of my mother that were in me.” I am currently doing that now, so it really touched my heart.

Ardis: I think I was the most moved by Loritta’s story. I felt her pain with each decision she made along her journey with her mother. The ending to her story was a fitting ending to the book—very encouraging.

Loritta: The emotional process of their hurts being released to God and their journeys of walking it out with Him speak to me. I was moved by Treva’s descriptions of this process.

a pink butterfly  3. In what point in your relationship with your mother or child did you realize you needed relational healing?

Alice: My mother was always closer to me than any of her other children; I sensed her unhappiness and wanted to try to be there for her. Then in my early twenties I left home for the city to work. Transported into the world, I began to see not all the ways in my childhood home matched the ordinary way of going about life.

Catherine: The need in my heart became evident when I was going through grief over my mother’s death. As you can read in the book, the Lord has ways of healing our relationships even when separated by distance, disease or death.

Ellen: When I was a new Christian and learned how important it was to forgive others. Also at that time, the relationship with our mothers was a topic of discussion with my close friends, all of whom felt they had emotional gaps that their parents, especially their mothers, hadn’t filled.

Treva: Years after she died. It was a hard journey because I was unable to talk to my mom and hear her respond. But I wouldn’t change a thing, for that is where I truly encountered God.

Loritta: I knew most of my life that it wasn’t what it should be. But when I read A Daughter’s Journey Home, by Dr. Linda Mintle, some of the pieces of the puzzle came into focus. I began to pray about my relationship with my mother and ask God to work in us. And my journaling with God and the listening practice opened the door significantly.

4. What makes the mother/child relationship so significant? a pink butterfly

Ardis: I think the mother/child relationship is a mirror of the love our heavenly father has for us.

Kerry: I never realized until I had my own children, but at the end of the day, a mother’s love for a child is the strongest bond that exists.

Kyleen: I think that, since I wanted children and was unable to have them, it has made me appreciate what so many women take for granted. I envy the blessings of being pregnant, of giving birth, of seeing your features in your child’s face, of knowing they came from your body. But God has taught me that he is the maker of families, and I am blessed knowing that Jesus, too, was adopted (by Joseph). So my children are to me the very face of God. To me they represent all that he is – his goodness, kindness, and love.

5. What events, sensory experiences, etc., trigger your memories of a pink butterflyyour mother?

Catherine: My mother had a quip, saying, or song for every situation or occasion, it seemed. Those sayings and songs pop into my head often and remind me of her. I still “hear” her voice.

Ellen: Going to the farmer’s market, smelling apple pies baking … sewing, bringing flowers into the house … Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Treva: A certain Dolly Parton song, camping and eating spaghetti. My mom loved spaghetti.

Ardis: This may sound strange, but I think I am most reminded of my mother in my writing and speaking opportunities. I feel that she would be proud of me for who I am finally becoming, and that gives me a great sense of her presence with me. In a way, this makes up for not having her there when I was young.

Loritta: She enjoyed flowers and colors in shades of purples, aquas, violets. Just this week I walked past orchids in the grocery store that are tinted in those tones and thought of her.

6. Do you ever see your mom in yourself?  a pink butterfly

Catherine: Every time I make the choice and the effort to be positive, to engage with other people when I feel like pulling away … I think of my mother who modeled those attitudes to me.

Ellen: Yes. She had an authoritative way of speaking. She would make pronouncements (not always based on facts), pontificate, and discourage discussion. I still find myself sounding like her, even though I’ve tried for years to overcome it. When I notice myself doing the same thing, it lets me know how ingrained her attitudes were/are in me. I feel frustrated that it’s still there inside my personality. Then I’m motivated to revisit my efforts to change and make it more of a priority to do so.

Treva: At times I do. I used to despise it. But God was able to bring me to a place of embracing those characteristics and bring me more understanding of my mom.

Verna Hill Simms: I remind myself of Mother every time I sit in the living room and watch for the mail carrier. Mail means a lot to me as it did to her.

Ardis: This question hits to the core area of my personal healing when my mother died. I was able to integrate and embrace the parts of my mother that I had been rejecting all my life. Thanks to the Lord’s work in me, I am no longer embarrassed by our similarities.

Kerry: Yes. I especially see my mom in myself when I’m faced with a tough challenge. My mom never gave up on anything and she leaned on her faith during the hardest times. When I’m going through a tough time, I think of mom and follow her example. Whenever I feel like life is a bit too hard, I remember my mom’s example and immediately feel stronger.

7. In what way is mother love a journey?   a pink butterfly

Alice: I wonder how God would have brought me along without children! I know there are people who do not have children and who have a deep relationship with God, but God knew I needed children!

Ellen: For me, mother love grew from an unrealistic ideal to a reality based on experience. Each stage of our children’s growth, from elementary school to junior high to high school has challenges of its own. As I journeyed along with my children, my love was tested, strengthened and developed through the ups and downs they experienced. My love grew from the tenderest feelings for our infants to caring for their needs while juggling other responsibilities, to tough love as they tested boundaries. Mother love survived the smooth and rocky places along the path because, I believe, it originates in God’s love for us all.

Ardis: I am seeing this theme poignantly in my life now. Just today I had a conversation with my 15 year old son about this. We had connecting time while attending a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t have any of that with my parents. I am embracing the journey of learning how to mother anew, be a “sister” to Rosa, an “aunt” to Pedro, and a daughter to my stepmother. This journey is connecting me with my heart and allowing me to share it with others.

Kerry: Mother love is a journey because life is a journey. There are ups and there are downs; there are moments of joy and moments of sheer pain; but through all of it, love is the foundation. My mom has progressed to the advanced-stage of Alzheimer’s and this is the final destination in our journey. Alzheimer’s is a heartbreaking disease, but I have peace knowing that at the end of my mom’s journey here on earth, she will be rewarded for her lifetime of love. faith, and determination–the gift of Heaven.

Loritta: You can’t understand everything from one vantage point. You have to climb that mountain and look back sometimes, and other times you just have to put your hand in God’s and let Him talk to you about what you need to know that only He can reveal in a way that you can receive.

Kyleen: Learning to love unconditionally, to bring out the best in your children, to be their cheerleader and to guide them with kindness is not always easy, especially when your own relationship with your mother was strained. Still, it is a noble and worthy endeavor. This is the journey God asks us to take as mothers.

All the authors and their stories

Exaggerated Memories

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in emotional needs, forgiving mom, Learning to appreciate Mom, losing mom too soon, the healing journey

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Lilies

In The Secret Life of Bees, the girl Lily deals with feelings of guilt, anger, and forsakenness after her mother’s death. At the end of the story she says:

“I keep my mother’s things on a special shelf in my room…. The feeling that they are holy objects is already starting to wear off…. In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.” (from The Secret Life of Bees, p. 301)

After a loved one dies we tend to idealize that person. In our minds we exaggerate their positive qualities and minimize—maybe for a while we even forget—their negative qualities. I knew a mother whose young son died in a Boy Scout hiking accident. Even after ten years she hadn’t moved anything in his bedroom. And no one else was allowed in there. That space, his things, and those memories were sacrosanct.

At the beginning of The Secret Life of Bees Lily treats the few things she has left that belonged to her mother as holy objects, buried secretly in a treasure box. By the end of the book Lily keeps these objects on a shelf like other possessions, and she is even beginning to let her friends touch them.

In the book, Motherless Daughters, author Hope Edelman says, “Like anger, idealization is a normal and useful early response to loss. Focusing on a mother’s good traits reaffirms the importance of her presence, and processing the happy side of a relationship is a gentle way to activate mourning. But every human relationship is affected by ambivalence, every mother an amalgam of the good and the bad” (p. 19). Ms. Edelman explains that if we are to mourn our mothers fully, we need to look back and “acknowledge the flip sides of perfection and love.” Otherwise we will be remembering our mothers as only half of what they were, and even ending up mourning a caricature, not the person who was your mother.

My mother died young, before I had matured in my understanding of her and ability to relate to her. I was stuck in my needy grief as long as I memorialized her in my mind as perfect, almost hallowed. Coming to remember, love, and appreciate my mother as a multi-faceted, even flawed woman (albeit one who loved a perfectly loving and holy God) has helped me move through the grief to a place where I can live and love much more freely.

~ Catherine Lawton

“I Forgive You”

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in childhood memories, confessing our need, forgiving mom, God's healing love, letting go of anger, the healing journey

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"Forgiveness 3" by Carlos Latuff.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In every close relationship we can get our feelings hurt. At those times—when we hurt each other in big and small ways—two little words make a huge difference: “I’m sorry.” Have you said “I’m sorry” recently to your best friend? to your spouse? to your child? to your parent?

Then a sweet, healing balm is applied to the wound when three simple but powerful words are spoken back: “I forgive you.”

Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing … That’s the subtitle of our book, and for good reason. Healing and forgiveness go together. In fact, I can confidently say that relational healing won’t happen without forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the turning point in all the stories in Journeys to Mother Love.

During this season of Lent, I am going to meditate on the forgiveness provided for me by Jesus on the cross. He forgave freely, unconditionally, forever. Jesus was mocked, misunderstood, abused, rejected. Yet he said, “Father, forgive them.”

He was despised and rejected … a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering…. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows … and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53: 3-6)

 
Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

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Can we not bring our offenses, hurts, and rejections to Jesus?

Because Jesus forgives, we must. Because he did, we can.

Forgive. Then live in a heart attitude of forgiveness. Slights, rejections, offenses will come—sometimes unexpectedly, catching us off-guard. I’m asking the Lord to help me recognize those feelings when they come, then help me give the offense and the feelings to Jesus immediately. He knows my thoughts and feelings already. I can simply let it go. In faith. With love. Because there are much bigger things at stake than my hurt feelings. Because it’s so much more important how the Lord sees me than how others see me. Because he gave his life and shed his precious blood so that forgiveness could happen. Because fellowship, relationship, wholeness are so important to the Lord and so wonderful to experience.

I realize some wounds are so deep we hardly know how to face them, how to deal with them, or even exactly what or who we need to forgive. Perhaps the other person is not saying “I’m sorry.” But our unforgiving spirit is causing us pain and keeping us from a life of joyful wholeness.

As a child I heard my preacher father give the sermon illustration of a festering boil, full of pus and painful to touch. Such a sore place causes misery and anguish until you are willing to have it lanced open and drained of the poisonous, pressuring pus. Or what about a person who had a broken arm that wasn’t set properly and grew together wrong, awkward and painful? It must be re-broken and set properly so it can knit together in harmony and heal, so the arm will move freely without pain.

I don’t want to let poisonous reactions, angry pressure, out-of-kilter attitudes, or pus-like resentment fester in my soul and cause anguish in my relationships.

Lord, give me the grace to say and mean, “I forgive you.”

~Catherine Lawton

A Friendship Born in Sorrow

06 Wednesday Feb 2013

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

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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

THE RESULT OF PRAYER

17 Saturday Nov 2012

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

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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