10 Saturday May 2014
You can buy our book Journeys to Mother Love on Kindle for only 99¢ during the next three days.
This is our Mother’s Day gift to our friends and followers. If you already have the kindle book, consider buying it as a gift for a friend.
Click to Journeys to Mother Love in the Kindle store here: http://amzn.com/B00905EDSQ
Blessings on your journey.
09 Friday May 2014
Tags
a heart filled with love and hope, Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiveness, giving and receiving, Healing love, mother and daughter, unresolved hurt
I was nine years old when my parents divorced. I’ll never forget that day. After hearing the news, I ran into the woods behind our house and cried my eyes out. “Why? Why? Why?” I cried to God.
Those repressed memories surfaced a while back in a therapy session as I got in touch with the little Ardis who was hurting from the trauma of this event. I’ve processed this before, but this time I remembered something new. I remembered that I told my father I hated him. It became one of those pivotal moments in my life when I decided I had to be a BIG girl and stuff my emotions.
I surfaced from those woods, calm and collected. I WAS a big girl. But try as I might, that anger at what was going on between my parents was still there. Both of my parents soon remarried. I lived with my mother and stepfather thousands of miles away from my father, who had retained our family home as part of the divorce settlement. The only time I got to see him was on summer vacation periods. His remarriage was so short-lived that I never met his new wife and never even considered her a stepmother.
When I was 13 years old, another woman came into my father’s life, and he remarried again. Inside I’m sure I was devastated, although I never talked to my father about it. I was desperately searching and longing for his love and approval. After they wed, my summer visits were spent at her home. My days were long, lounging around the house watching soap operas, and taking care of her dog—not much fun for a teenage girl. Yet I continued to worship the ground my father walked on.
My stepmother treated me fairly. I don’t remember being mean or unruly with her. I never called her ‘mom’, only by her first name. But to hear her tell of this time in my life, I get a very different story. It’s a story about an angry, lazy teen that didn’t do much of anything, and made her wishes and demands known to all within earshot.
The healing of that turbulent angry young teen took many years of deep spiritual growth and recovery work. And when my father passed away two years ago at the age of 94, I had already forgiven him and learned to accept that he could not give me the kind of love I had longed for.
But it was the love of his wife, my stepmother, which really helped to fill that hole in my heart.
Over recent years, we have spent countless hours on the phone, talking about adult women issues, and sharing our hearts. She has been a big supporter of my writing and always wants to hear about what is going on in my life.
Interestingly enough, what brought us together was the empathy and compassion we both received from an understanding of what it was like to live with my father. They were married 38 years.
As I got healing for my father wounds, I was able to come alongside her more as well. She endured long suffering as she cared for my father the last several years of his life. She sacrificed. She toiled. And when he passed, she asked me to write his eulogy, and gave me and my siblings carte blanche on how to run his memorial service. It was a huge gift to me.
My stepmother celebrated her 80th birthday recently, with a huge party of friends and family. While I barely knew any of them, my family and I traveled the 150 miles to celebrate with her. She’s been a pillar of strength for me to lean on these past several years. I owe her that much in return. After all, while I didn’t recognize it much over the years, she has been to some degree the mother I never had.
We had a rocky start, but this journey to stepmother love has been worth the wait. Happy Mother’s Day, MOM!
~ Ardis A. Nelson
20 Sunday Apr 2014
Tags
Adoption, Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, future hope, God the Father, God's promises, life and death
We all have parents, whether we physically knew them or not. In my case, I knew both of my parents, growing up in a home where they both lived until I was nine. It was at that point that they divorced. My mother, my two brothers and me moved 2,000 miles away so we could be near my mother’s relatives.
Saying goodbye that day to my father on the plane was a very painful experience. It was back in the day when non-ticketed friends and family could go beyond the security check-point at the airport. My father walked us all onto the plane and paid special attention to me. Through my tears I could hear him reassuringly say, “Everything is going to be ok. You need to be a big girl now and take care of your mother.”
That was not my first taste of abandonment, but it’s the one I remember most. My previous taste of abandonment was when my mother had her nervous breakdown when I was six years old. She didn’t choose to abandon me, but the effects of that event led me to never really knowing my mother as a person.
Those two abandonments early on in my life left me seeking to fill the void in my heart in unhealthy ways. I tried throughout my teens and into adulthood to win my father’s approval—to feel important in his eyes. Worse than that were the choices I made to rebel against God. Thankfully God has redeemed the pain of my youth and beyond.
When I grew up—I mean really grew up emotionally on the inside—not my physical age, I started to recognize and label these abandonments for what they were and the affects they had on me. Now that both of my parents are gone (going on two years), a friend who recently lost the second of her parents asked me if I feel (or felt) like an orphan after they passed.
Her question gave me an opportunity to reflect on that very point. We talked about it a bit. My response was ‘no’. I can certainly understand how one would feel that way. However, for me, I led the life of an orphan most of my adult life. As I actively turned to Christ in the last decade or so, I learned more about my significance to God and the role the Body of Christ was intended to play in my life. I built relationships with other women who were also hungry for God and seeking to become the women He designed them to be.
I was no longer orphaned; I was adopted. I was adopted into the Body of Christ and was now part of His family. Romans 8:14-16 tells us: For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
With that adoption comes a responsibility to live life as God designed. Easter Sunday is a marker of that adoption for all who accept Christ as their Savior. Our adoption certificates are signed with his blood. Let us not take that for granted.
Regardless of the relationship you had or didn’t have with your parents, may you embrace the love of our Heavenly Father and His physical representatives on earth as your family.
~ Ardis A. Nelson
19 Saturday Apr 2014
I have felt forsaken, especially at specific times in my youth. During this Holy Week it really does something for me to know that Jesus also felt forsaken. What this means for all of us who have suffered and felt abandoned, writer Jasona Brown expresses well:
I agreed to speak on these words at our church’s Good Friday service. Then I thought, What have I done? I now must teach on the worst words in the entire Bible? 
Jesus cried these words moments before his death, not long before he screamed, gave up his spirit, and died.
Exposure and Vulnerability
The Romans stripped Jesus of his clothes, exposing his body; they stripped him of his skin by scourging, exposing his sinews and muscles; but with these words, Jesus himself exposed his heart, laying it bare and raw before the human race. He could not have made himself more vulnerable.
So, I move forward with trembling. How can I presume to speak of the mystery of this most excruciating, vulnerable moment in my savior’s life?
Joy Under Despair
I must speak, however, not only because I said I would, but because the longer I sit with these words the…
View original post 704 more words
04 Tuesday Mar 2014
Tags
Adoption, caverns of the heart, Emotional and spiritual healing, future hope, Healing love, life and death, life stages
When your mother dies, especially if she is still quite young, you can feel forsaken and forlorn. And even when your heart embraces the mercy of these true words: “When my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will take me up” — there remains a mother-shaped cavern in your heart that reminds you every day of your loss.
But the Lord has shown me that He wants to fill that hole in my life with the most unexpected, beautiful gifts. I have been wanting to tell my readers about the wondrous gifts that have been coming to me. And I think it is time now. So, with a sense of Heaven’s nearness, a smile of awe, and a few tears, I’ll share the rest of the story….
This week my pastor concluded his sermon with the words, “Filling our imagination with Jesus, we increasingly live in touch with reality, while the whole world is out of touch with reality.” I know this is true. I’ve experienced Jesus working through my imagination to enter and heal the losses and wounds of my life. Our minds can believe all sorts of lies, and our hearts can be oppressed by darkness; but when Jesus steps in to fill a mind and a heart, light shines out the darkness, and loving truth dispels crippling falsehood.
You can read my story — of how Jesus “took me up” and healed my heart — in Journeys to Mother Love. Part of that story is that for many years I have lived with a mother-cavern in my heart since my mother died when I was in my twenties. Since Mother was adopted as a young child out of a large family fallen on hard times (during the Great Depression, her mother died of TB and her father left to find work) … and then, adopted, she was raised as an only child … I have had no relatives on my mother’s side.
Then, 18 months ago, after years of searching, I found my mother’s birth family — living within an hour’s drive of my husband and me! I found a cousin the same age as my mother who had been a toddler in the same home with Mother and always wondered what happened to little Imogene. At 83 she was the last of the generation that remembered my mother, Imogene. So I found her in the nick of time.
This new-found cousin, Mary Lou, was as thrilled to find me as I was to find her. We felt a bond immediately, and the mother-cavern in my heart didn’t feel so empty. And gradually I learned that she was a person of faith who loved the Lord and prayed for her family.
I treasure the times we spent together: visits in my home and in her apartment, sharing lunches together, looking through photo albums, finding so many ways our paths have intersected unbeknown to us, feeling her strong grasp of my hands, her kisses on my cheeks, hearing her heartfelt, “I love you!”
Then this winter she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Long vigils in the hospital brought my husband and me together with her children and grandchildren. And the heart-cavern of impending loss filled with cousins who enfolded me and I have found myself surrounded by family I never expected to have.
Last Friday night my husband and I stood with 16 of Mary Lou’s family members around her ICU bed as she lay at death’s door. We had each had opportunity to sit with her, express our love, and say good-bye. But the grief and sadness were creating a huge cavern of grief in the room, felt by everyone present.
Then this family, with tears, each at various stages of belief and doubt, gathered round the beloved mother and grandmother who had been their strong, caring, faithful hub and, instead of calling the hospital chaplain, asked one of her sons, who had been a steady church attender, to pray. I doubt the family had ever done that before. But as gentle, simple, real, heartfelt words poured from that brother (one of my new-found cousins, who has had much suffering in his life) grace like rain poured sweetness into the gaping cavern of sadness. Surely every heart, no matter how unaccustomed to praying, was touched. … How can sadness be so sweet?!
Soon after that I read my friend Jasona’s blog in which she writes, “I see loss, difficulty, and uncertainty as cavernous places, and I have hope that when we open them to Jesus he fills them with grace so they can become … like settings for diamonds.” (You can read her entire blog post here.) Jasona’s post came to me as another gracious gift that helped me fill my imagination with Jesus, helped me deal with the grief in a way that was in touch with reality — the realities of Life in the midst of death, Light in the midst of darkness, Heaven in the midst of our earthy lives, and the Wonders of God’s ways.
~ Catherine Lawton
25 Saturday Jan 2014
Tags
Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, Forgiveness, Healing love, life and death, Modeling the faith, Parenting
Lately I’ve been struck with reminders of the importance of legacy and purpose in our lives—most recently while attending a memorial service for someone I knew at church who died suddenly before Christmas. She was a vibrant part of our church community, serving in many capacities, but most notably as Lady Jellybean, a beloved clown in the children’s ministry. Her passing was a great loss to all who knew her.
This got me to thinking more about the legacy that I’m leaving. What will people say about me after I’m gone? How will my family remember me? I’m the first to admit that I don’t have it all together, that I am at times overwhelmed by all the irons I have in the fire, and even that I’ve fallen short of my kids’ or my husband’s expectations.
I came into marriage over thirty years ago carrying a lot of baggage from a turbulent and empty childhood. I didn’t have the kind of parents who modeled a godly marriage or who poured into my siblings and me in ways that bonded us on an emotional level. Quite the contrary, we didn’t know anything about emotional bonding.
It wasn’t until much later in life, when I re-dedicated my life to Christ, and started attending Bible studies, spiritual growth classes, and Celebrate Recovery, that I realized the damage I was causing in my own family and in myself.
As I started to understand things about myself, learned what I hadn’t received emotionally (or have modeled to me), I began to make changes in my parenting and my relationship with my husband—though both are still far from perfect. The point is, we can make changes in our lives that will affect the legacy we leave behind.
Case in point: although my mother was mentally ill all her life, I realized in her passing three years ago that she didn’t leave me a legacy of mental illness as I had feared she would. She left me a great legacy of faith by modeling that to me. I didn’t appreciate it when I was young, but see it now as a vibrant part of who I am.
Before my father passed away the following year, there was a great deal of healing between us as well. Those last few months gave both of us peace in his passing. Those are the memories that stand out to me now as I think of what he gave me. I attribute that to God’s work in me and my ability to forgive both of my parents early on in my recovery and healing process.
I am breaking the generational curse of dysfunction by modeling biblical principles with my sons. I wish I had known then—when my kids were young—what I know now. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they enter into the therapeutic process because of things I said or did out of my parenting and biblical ignorance.
My hope in all of this is that, when I’m dead and gone, my sons will remember that I had a heart for Jesus and that He became the foundation of my life. And when they decide to enter into the healing process, I hope and pray that they will embrace it with grace for themselves and their imperfect parents, along with embracing their Abba Father, who is the Healer of all wounds.
“Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.” Psalm 30:2, NIV
~ Ardis A. Nelson
08 Wednesday Jan 2014
Tags
a heart filled with love and hope, Emotional and spiritual healing, life stages, life's upward path, Mothering, Women's Issues
WHAT? YOU CAN’T STOP CRYING
What? You can’t stop crying.
I hear you. Been there.
You say you left your grocery cart in frozen foods.
You’re telling me it was loaded with food
and every kind of whatnot
from all the other aisles,
And then you hightailed it to your car.
There you hid behind sunglasses and drove home.
Did you remember to wipe your fingerprints
off the handle of the loaded, abandoned cart
in frozen foods?
Just kidding.
You complain you couldn’t sleep because your slumber
was interrupted by the need to blow your nose.
David of the Old Testament cried on his bed.
See, we are in good company.
Let’s look at the list of life’s events that can trigger
such an avalanche of emotion.
Just check the one that fits, or mark “Other”
at the bottom.
All right, here we go.
You poured your life into the children.
All the children left home.
The empty nest doesn’t feel as good as you thought it would.
You lost your job.
You’re too old to be hired.
You’re not sure whether this reinventing is right for you.
You moved your mother into a nursing home.
You tried to manage Mom at home.
You moved your mother back into the home.
There is an injustice in your life.
You try to think of ways to address it.
Every idea leads to a dead end.
You choose to remain silent.
You have just received a bad diagnosis.
Many well-intentioned people are offering suggestions.
Someone who is dear to you is very ill.
That loved one says, “Just sit with me.”
An important person in your life passes away.
Other.
Listen, if you weren’t crying, I’d be worried about you.
I sympathize with you.
God empathizes with you.
That’s the reason He included people
like Joseph, David, Job, and Paul in His Book.
Think about them; think about the Lord; and think about me.
And, in the near future,
you’ll be able to leave your empty cart in the corral,
go home, store the perishables in the refrigerator,
and then sit on the sofa and have a good cry.
Now, that will be progress. That will be hope.
~ A.R. (Alice) Cecil
Editor’s note: This poem is taken from the book, IN THAT PLACE CALLED DAY: Poems and Reflections That Witness God’s Love.
19 Thursday Dec 2013
Tags
Christian spirituality, Christmas, Emotional and spiritual healing, Family, future hope, God's promises, Holidays, life and death, life stages, Mother, relationships
Ah, Christmas! Bright lights, hustle and bustle, joyous music and celebrations….
Yet, hidden behind all the glitter, many people feel the pangs of sadness and loneliness more acutely during the Christmas season. If you have ever experienced a great loss at Christmastime, the holiday season awakens that grief again each year.
I know. My mother died on December 19, 1977. My father was the pastor of a loving church at the time, and the people were sweet to us, though they also grieved the death of their beloved pastor’s wife. Our family found comfort in togetherness—my husband and I with our two toddlers, my sister, and our dad. After the funeral, we stayed and spent Christmas in our parents’ home, with everything around us to remind us of Mother. … But no mother. She was not there and would never be again.
At a time when we celebrated the birth…
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21 Thursday Nov 2013
Tags
authentic relationship, Christian spirituality, Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, God the Father, Grandparent, Modeling the faith, Parenting
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
13 Wednesday Nov 2013
Tags
Christian author, Christmas, Christmas stories, Emotional and spiritual healing, Family, life stages, life's upward path, mentors, personal and spiritual growth
The Lord took Alice’s artistic ability, love of the Bible and interest in people, and her life experiences, and He turned it all into a ministry of encouragement through her creative writing.
A.R. (Alice) Cecil, one of our Journeys contributors, always enjoyed the arts. As a child, she put on plays in the basement. As a university student, she earned a masters degree in Fine Art doing studio painting. But God had another plan! Alice says that, as a young adult, the visual arts gave her a way to express ideas and emotions. She adds, “I did not have enough life experience and maturity to be a writer. My journey from painter to Christian writer could have only been orchestrated by God.”
When Alice and her husband, Joe (a well-known physician at Baptist East Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky), started a family, Alice read to her young children often. And she came to appreciate children’s literature so much that she was soon writing her own children’s books and illustrating them. Gradually, though, the bits of text that ran across the pages of those picture books grew and grew until she was writing full-length stories.
Then, 26 years ago, after their fourth child was born with cancer, Alice and Joe came to personal faith in Christ. The Lord brought a new focus to their lives.
After her conversion, as Alice grew as a Christian and as a writer, she wanted to incorporate the truths of the Bible into her writing. She hungered to better understand both theology and human nature. Alice lists several Christian writers who greatly influenced her during this time: Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Watchman Nee, Oswald Chambers, and C.S. Lewis. She also sought out mentors: a Christian psychologist and a seminary student earning his doctorate.
A strong desire grew within her to minister within the body of Christ through her writing. For a while she wrote a newspaper column. Then in 2012 her short memoir, “Run, Run, as Fast as You Can,” was published in the anthology, Journeys to Mother Love: Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing. This story tells Alice’s testimony of the relational challenges in her childhood as well as the sorrows that led a young mother to turn to Christ.
Alice has raised her four children and now has four grandchildren as well. Through all my communications with her she exudes joy and peace and patience (the fruit of the Spirit). And her writing demonstrates these fruits. This fall, her book of Christmas stories was released by Cladach Publishing, entitled That Was the Best Christmas!: 25 Short Stories from the Generations. Asked where she gets the ideas for her fascinating variety of characters, plots, and settings, Alice states that they develop from her desire to address certain aspects of the human condition with God as the answer. An endorsement from Judy Russell states it well: “A.R. (Alice) Cecil has a real gift to inspire and tug at heartstrings. Young and old will be inspired and enjoy.”
Each of the Christmas stories is set amidst historic events that take place during the years progressing from 1906 to 2013. The main character of each story is a boy or girl, man or woman whose heart opens to give or receive love, bringing personal transformation as they find opportunities to exchange the true gifts of Christmas, such as kindness, encouragement, forgiveness, peace, hope, and belonging. Alice (A.R. Cecil is her pen name) writes with a touch of humor and a warm understanding of both human relationships and the transforming power of God and His Word. That Was the Best Christmas! by A.R. Cecil is available in The Living Word bookstore in Louisville as well as through select stores across the country and online retailers. The paperback can be purchased at Amazon.com and BN.com. You can also read it in Kindle version.
To read Alice’s (A.R. Cecil’s) writing is to feel her heart and to be refreshed in faith and the joy of the journey.
~ Catherine
p.s. I based much of this post on Alice’s answers to interview questions I sent her. You’ll hear from Alice herself here soon, as she is preparing to post her personal testimony.
30 Wednesday Oct 2013
Tags
a heart filled with love and hope, authentic relationship, Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Family, Finding our identity, life stages, mother and daughter, relationships, Sadness
(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.)
22 Sunday Sep 2013
In the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, where the vision for “Journeys to Mother Love” began
Hard to believe, but more than a year has passed since the book Journeys to Mother Love was published and the authors started sharing this blog as well. How did these nine women, who live in all corners of this great country, come together in this way? Well, here’s the story.
As publisher and editor of Cladach Publishing, a small Christian press, I was invited to the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in Estes Park, Colorado, to give 15-minute interviews to authors. At the May, 2011 conference I spoke with three or four women in one day who had heart-wrenching personal stories that they hoped to have published as books. The authors were so passionate and full of the fresh touch of the Lord, and their stories so real and relevant for many women, that I couldn’t get away from thinking about them. By the third or fourth interview the thought came to me, with a gentle nudge from the Lord, that these stories along with others could be focused and compiled in a book that could help and encourage many readers.
When I spoke to those four women, two out of four got on board (Kyleen from Wyoming, and Loritta from Colorado). Then I sent emails to Christian writers groups across the country, with an invitation and guidelines for the mother-child, relationship-healing stories needed for this book. Varied, wonderful, authentic stories came back to me from Ardis in Washington, Alice in Kentucky, Ellen in California, Kerry in Pennsylvania, and Verna in Missouri. Then we had seven contributors!
As I worked on editing and compiling these stories, the thought dawned on me—again, with a gentle nudge—that I have a personal story myself of inner healing and relational healing. Putting some of my other publishing work on the back burner, I dug out old journals and diaries, delved again into memories of early traumas and experiences, and people and teachings that mentored and guided me through a long search for joyful wholeness.
It was an amazing experience. I had moved on to many new friendships, places, experiences in my life. But that period of inner healing was foundational to the life I was now living. And going back to review the steps, to recall those formative early experiences strengthened my faith and opened me up to sharing more deeply with others.
So we had eight stories from women of many ages. Then, as we neared the publication date for Journeys to Mother Love, I went to another conference and met a young woman with a tragic and compelling story, who had a strong testimony of forgiveness and healing. That was Treva, another from Colorado. She and I both felt that now-familiar nudge, and she agreed to work her story into the right length and shape for this book within a few weeks’ time. And then we were nine!
When the manuscript went out to readers across the country, comments came back, such as: “These stories will touch every woman’s heart” (from a woman minister in Wyoming). “Filled with authenticity” (from the leader of a street ministry in Salem, Oregon). “Arresting and unflinchingly honest” (from an author and speaker/ encourager of women in Arizona). “They teach us to take our pain to the right person, the great Healer who understands the mysteries of our hearts” (from a pastor’s wife in California).
So it was published, and many have read the book and shared it with others, finding their own stories in the midst of these women’s stories, and also finding hope for healing.
As I wrote in the Introduction to the book, “We, the writers of this book, represent four different generations and come from various backgrounds and places. What we have in common is this: We are all mothers and we all have mothers (whether or not they are still living). For each of us, coming to the place of freely receiving and giving love in the mother-child relationship has been a sometimes difficult journey. . . . We share these personal memoirs as testimonies of God’s grace. We simply and openly tell our stories in hopes that many readers, mothers and daughters like us, will be helped.”
So that’s the story of how Journeys to Mother Love came to be, the result of a series of gentle nudges. And the story and the journey continue.
~Catherine Lawton
08 Thursday Aug 2013
Tags
authentic relationship, Books, Courage to be honest, Death, Emotional and spiritual healing, future hope, Mother, mother and daughter, relationships
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.
~Catherine Lawton
21 Tuesday May 2013
Tags
authentic relationship, Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Forgiveness, life stages, mother and daughter, relationships, Role reversal, unresolved hurt
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
15 Monday Apr 2013
Tags
authentic relationship, Courage to be honest, Emotional and spiritual healing, Finding our identity, friendship, life's upward path, milestones, Mothering, personal discoveries
1. Did you laugh or cry, or both, while you were writing your story?
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.
2. 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.
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?
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 your 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?
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?
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.
Journeys To Mother Love 