Tag Archives: mother and daughter

Faith in the Birthing Room

04 Wednesday May 2016

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

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   ChristinaAndBreanna

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Catherine Lawton

Hannah Whitall Smith Comparing God’s Love to Mother Love

06 Saturday Feb 2016

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

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

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

O great heart of God! whose loving

Cannot hindered be, nor crossed;

Will not weary, will not even

In our death itself be lost!

Love divine! of such great loving

Only mothers know the cost,

Cost of love, that, past all loving,

Gave itself to save the lost.

I think I understand this.

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

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

~Catherine Lawton

Mom’s Cooking

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in childhood memories, generational patterns, leaving a legacy, Remembering Mother, the healing journey

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cobbler-cooked

photo by Shannon Fitzgerald

The Facebook post revealed a photo of blackberry cobbler just like Mom used to make. That looks SO good! The ingredients suggested it would taste good, too. I decided to give the recipe a try.

Soon, in the grocery store blackberries were plentiful and picture perfect. Would twelve ounces of berries make 2 1/4 cups the recipe called for? I guessed the basket contents were close, and it proved to be the exact amount needed. The other ingredients were on hand, so I measured them exactly, mixed them as directed, and baked my first batch.

It turned out tasty and, to my delight, almost as good as Mom’s. I tweaked the recipe twice until it was almost perfect. Unless you’ve tried to reproduce your mother’s cooking and missed the mark, you won’t be able to appreciate the sense of victory that came with that final cobbler.

My mother let me watch her bake, but she never told me exactly how to make goodies like hers. She’d say it took “a little bit of this and a little bit of that,” which made it impossible to translate onto a recipe card. Friends of mine have expressed frustration at the same lack of clear instructions from their mothers. Our moms had the magic “touch.”

Reflecting on her talent, I realized what a high standard she set and that I unconsciously compared my cooking to hers when I’d ask, Was that lemon filling too sweet or too tart? Was the crust flaky or tough? Were the vegetables done at the same time the roast was ready?

Today we eat differently than Mother did on the farm or I did growing up. Today people lead more sedentary lives, eat less fat and sugar, more fruits and vegetables. Therefore, our children may not remember us for our cooking prowess.

What will they remember us for? What will they try to emulate?

I hope our children will remember that we tried to follow God’s recipes and instructions exactly. And when there weren’t specific instructions, we did what the law of love seemed to suggest. I hope they understand that not everything we attempted met God’s high standards, that there were times we had to tweak our behavior, grateful that Christ removed our mistakes so God could be pleased with the results. I hope they agree that following Him leads to an abundant life.

I’m so grateful our children have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. They have excellent ingredients to work with and the same instructions to follow. Their results won’t be the same as ours; but if they keep following Christ, they will have abundant lives, too. I pray they become gourmet Christians in their generation.

~Ellen Cardwell

When Your Mother Believes in You

10 Sunday May 2015

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

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Cathy-Jeanne-Beach

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

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

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

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

Forgiving Yourself — and Your Children

06 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, forgiving yourself, generational patterns, Guest Post, Parenting, Regret transformed, The power of honest sharing

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Woman-at-gas-pump

istock photo

At a gas station many years ago, my preteen daughter ducked her head out of the car window and popped me a question.

“What would you say if I came home pregnant?”

I was glad for the pump to hang on to and the exercise of filling the tank to divert my eyes. Since she was too young to be sexually active, I didn’t faint at that prospect. However, this was a moment I knew would eventually come, so I said, “Well, my darling, not much … because that’s exactly what I did.”

You see, that pubescent girl was once the precious baby I had carried as an unwed mother.

It was time for me to share a major mistake I had made in my youth, which she accepted without comment. (Later we could talk about the deeper ramifications.) There is never a text book time or place to share these kinds of things; but when the question is asked, it should be answered appropriately, according to the child’s level of understanding.

At the gas pump, I had a choice to deny the truth, dodge the question, or in terror of the same thing happening to her, lay down the law. I’m so glad I did not lose the opportunity to show the grace and goodness of a God who redeems every circumstance, because …

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28*).

God’s ability to turn our darkest moments into good tells me that He is God and I am not. Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century mystic wrote, “Though the soul’s wounds heal, the scars remain. God sees them not as blemishes but as honors.”

After years of hiding my soul’s scars, it was such an utter relief and joy to relinquish the protection of my own reputation. In all the years I ministered to women, I only rarely and selectively offered full disclosure, for fear that others would think less of me. (My righteousness was in my works, not in Christ.)

A close friend shared with me a few years ago that when her son was getting married and would then gain possession of his birth certificate, her husband, the father, wanted to somehow have the young man’s birth certificate changed to reflect a full nine months from the wedding until the date of the boy’s birth. This saddened her for it spoke much more about her husband’s lack of confidence in a God of forgiveness and restoration than about hiding timelines from a son conceived out of wedlock. Chances are pretty high that their son had already figured it out, anyway.

So long as we mothers have not forgiven ourselves for our past misdeeds and sins, we’ll certainly never be able to fully forgive our children for their blunders. At times, our children’s choices may leave us stunned. When your children mess up, don’t reach for the hair shirt or beat yourself up for failing. Our children are free agents and must make choices of their own. But God is there when we can’t be. And while it is appropriate that we pray for God to keep our children from evil, or at the very least take them out of the circumstances, He often permits them to travel through the storms. But remember, He also is able to deliver them—safe, though scarred; secure, though shaken; and wiser, though wounded.

Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture” (Romans 8*).

Mothers, both you and your children will make mistakes. Bring them to our heavenly Parent, who is in the business of forgiveness and restoration. He makes no mistakes!

*Scriptures quoted from The Message

Alice Scott-Ferguson is a Scottish-born freelance writer, author, and motivational speaker who lives in Arizona. She writes from her heart as a wife, mother, grandmother, and Christ-follower. Among other books, she is the author of Mothers Can’t Be Everywhere, But God Is : A Liberating Look at Motherhood, from which this post is extracted.

A Letter to Mom

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by in childhood memories, encouraging each other, Learning to appreciate Mom, Remembering Mother, the healing journey

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DearMother

Dear Mom,

I am writing your birthday letter early this year. I have so much to tell you, and it can’t wait until June. The sad news is Dee had a stroke. I couldn’t talk her into taking better care of her health. She is improving every day. I know how fond you were of her—your first grandchild. I appreciate how much you helped me when she was born 73 years ago.

Now, the good news. Remember I told you I was writing a historical novel? It is finished and accepted by Rockinghorse Publishing, and printed! I bet you would love it. Do you think that is an odd name for a publishing company? I do, but it is easy to remember. Water Under the Bridge is a work of fiction, but a lot of it mirrors our life when we lived in Claypool, Arizona. I tell about the time we went to see the first aeroplane, and also the couple in the book had to convert the parlor into a small store because of the Great Depression. I also mention your voting dress and how it got its name.

I already told you how I was published in an anthology, Journeys to Mother Love. Well, it is selling well. One of the nine authors whose stories are in the book, Ardis Nelson, contacted me by email. She is also writing to her dead mother. It would be nice if you could find her in Heaven, don’t you think? Ardis and I are becoming friends. Ardis promised to pray for Dee and for my joints. Isn’t that sweet of her?

Oh, yes, Larry is getting married this month. They wanted me to fly out to Oregon for the wedding, but I’ve decided against it. The last time I tried to fly, Missouri had a snow storm and we were stuck in the airport for 12 hours. The first plane we boarded developed problems and we had to get off while they tried to repair the damage—with no luck. What an unpleasant experience.

You get a chance, beam down and we’ll attend Easter services together. That would be a blast. I’m going to the covered bridge again this year. Leave me a message, if you can—maybe plant a wildflower on the spot where you rested the day we went there with Lewis, or place a rabbit close by. But no copperheads, please.

My eyes hurt. I’ll close for now. I love you and will soon join you and all the others whom I miss. Tell Irene when you see her—tell her I’m coming. Soon!

Love,
Verna

 ~Verna Hill Simms

The Power of Sharing Your Deepest Secrets 

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by in confessing our need, family gatherings, forgiving yourself, Free to Love, healing after abortion, the healing journey, The power of honest sharing

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Sad and lonely woman's face

Secret shame keeps us isolated

My parents and I were in Las Vegas the first time I shared my abortion story with them. We were there for some fun and cheering up. I had just returned from South Korea, having traveled there with my husband to teach English as a second language after we graduated from college. But now I was home from that year, my husband was still in Pusan, and we were getting a divorce. I was feeling like a failure and hurting because I suspected my husband of infidelity. I felt abandoned—just like I had felt when my unborn child’s father had told me he wanted to break off our relationship six months after we had chosen abortion for our baby.

My parents and I sat in our hotel room, talking about my failed marriage and how I felt about it. The conversation trailed off and my mom filled the silence. “Honey, I just don’t understand what happened to you. You left our home with all kinds of self confidence, but somewhere between then and now, you seem to have lost it all.”

I looked down, not really knowing what to say. I knew what had happened to me, but I had never shared it with my parents. Abortion had happened to me. I had gotten pregnant, chosen abortion, and decided I was damaged goods. The baby’s father and I had broken off our relationship, and I had met and married a man who didn’t always exhibit the highest moral character. Now, a year later, I was getting a divorce.

“I never told you guys this, but….” my voiced cracked as the flood of emotion swelled. “I got pregnant when I was a freshman in college and I had an abortion.” My silent tears began to fall. Never once meeting their eyes, I continued, “I thought I didn’t deserve anyone better, so I married Sam.”

My parents both sat in stunned silence. When I finally mustered the courage to look up again, my mom said, “You know we don’t think any less of you for making that choice, right? I probably would have suggested the same solution. But you should have told us. You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”

“I was so scared to disappoint you.” I said. “You were so proud of me for going to college. I didn’t want to ruin all my chances at a bright future.”

“We are proud of you,” my dad said, “and this doesn’t change that.”

My tears fell freely now. All I could manage to say was, “Thank you.” I got up from where I was sitting and hugged them both. I had imagined this conversation in my mind so many times, and this was the best scenario I could imagine. There was no judgement, only concern and love.

We talked more about what had happened. Sharing details with them was uncomfortable, but it was freeing to no longer carry such a big secret. At least they could understand now why I had seemed to lose myself.

Since then, for the past 15 years, I’ve been finding myself again. One thing I’ve discovered is telling those you love your secrets has an amazing power to free you. We keep secrets because we are afraid of rejection and judgement. But the truth is our secrets imprison us more than someone’s rejection ever could. At the end of the day, if a loved one can’t overlook a bad decision we’ve made, that is their choice,  but we don’t have to allow that to control how we feel about ourselves. Their choice does not define who I am.

Keeping a secret could, however, prevent me from being honest with the ones I love, thereby limiting the intimacy in the relationship. If you never share your whole self, both good and bad, how can you ever fully open your heart? You might not be able to count on a loved one not judging you for your past mistakes, such as an abortion. Free yourself from the secret-keeping anyway.

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

The “Facts of Life”

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, emotional needs, feeling inadequate, generational patterns, Parenting

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Two people in love

My mother and father when they were engaged to be married – 1948

My mother once confided in me that until she got married, she thought you could get pregnant by kissing. This led to unnecessary feelings of guilt and fear. I’m sure her wedding night corrected this faulty information, because nine months later I was born!

By the time my sister and I had boyfriends that we were kissing, she worried whether she had told us all we needed to know to keep from getting pregnant before we were married. For sure, she hadn’t told us much. She had bought a book for teenage girls written by a recommended Christian author and told us each to read it. She never talked with us about it. Maybe she thought if we had questions, we’d come to her. The basic explanations in the book did clarify some things but also got my imagination going and made me more curious; but somehow I couldn’t bring my questions to my mother.

As you can tell from the photo above (of my mom and dad just before they were married), she was a fun and loving person. But I doubt if her parents had taught her much about the “facts of life.” Maybe folks back then assumed the kids would pick up the necessary facts by being around farm animals. And maybe the adults didn’t want to “put ideas” into the kids’ heads. Or maybe, in their own shame, discomfort, and lack of information, they were too uncomfortable to talk about “it.”

I can’t say I did a whole lot better with my children. And now they have children who are preteens and need loving explanations and guidance. There’s such a fine balance between not wanting to give them more information than they’re ready for, but giving them the answers they need at each stage of their growth.

When it comes to teaching children about sex in marriage, I think the best teaching parents can give is by example. As a teenager, lying in my bed with my bedroom door closed, sometimes I could hear my parents down the hall of our small house, in bed behind their closed door. And they would be laughing, murmuring, giggling, obviously enjoying each other.

That didn’t sound like anything to be ashamed or afraid of. It sounded like companionship, mutual affection and pleasure, something right and good. And I knew that was what I wanted.

~Catherine

 

THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, emotional needs, expectations, forgiving mom, forgiving yourself, generational patterns, God's healing love, Jesus on the cross, letting go of anger, rejecting lies, the healing journey

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flowers, mountain sillouette, and sunset

flowers, mountain silhouette, and sunset

The four of us sat in the dining room of the nursing home. Two of us had cars in the parking lot; we were free to leave any time. The other two occupied wheelchairs because their legs would not support the weight of their bodies and their minds would not support a plan as simple as how to exit the building.

I was one of the ones who would be leaving. Usually I am the only non-resident who is sitting at my mother’s table in the dining hall, but this day the daughter of another lady had come to visit. The two of us carried on a conversation between the bits and pieces of attention that we gave our mothers, those bits and pieces being all our mothers could receive.

Then, out of the blue, the other daughter made a statement. “This one,” she said, as she gestured with a sideways nod toward her mother. (“This one”! Had she just called her mother “this one”? I thought.) “Kept a perfect house,” the other daughter continued. “Beds had to be made every morning. Twice a year we had to clean everything from the ceilings to the floors.”

I looked at the woman’s mother. She is younger than my mother by 15-20 years, but oxygen tubes trailed from her nostrils. My mother, who is now 99 years old, was going strong 15-20 years ago. The lady with the oxygen tubes was oblivious to her daughter’s comment. My mind scanned its reservoir of information, searching for an appropriate response to the other daughter’s comment. (My knee-jerk reaction was, I wish my childhood home had been tidier; but I did not tell her that. My next thought was, I wonder if my children think I cared too much about the cleanliness and order? But, of course, I didn’t air that question either.) The moment passed for lack of feedback, and the conversation moved in another direction.

Soon the visit ended. It was time for my mother’s nap. I exited the building to my car in the parking lot. In the car on the way back to accomplish the rest of my list of errands, my thoughts were drawn back to the table in the dining hall. Is there anybody who wishes his or her childhood was different, and therefore, better?

It is impossible to make a perfect home, to be a perfect mother, or to be a perfect child. But that’s what our minds seem to be set on: Perfect. We really think we can accomplish perfect, or we can go through life “bent out of shape” because our childhood home was not the version of perfect we were longing to have. I know there are varying degrees of imperfection, and some people have huge hurdles to overcome.

However, we have a heavenly Father who covers us in grace. After Adam and Eve sinned, God covered them with the skins of animals. Those animals were the first creatures to know death. That act of love was a foreshadowing of the supreme act of covering with grace by the death of God’s Son, Jesus, on a cross.

God’s grace is the only way we can break the cycle of hurt—anger—hurt—anger—hurt. We might not be able to control very much in our lives, or accomplish a long list of achievements. But, we can accomplish—I believe—the greatest achievement. We can be the generation in our family that chooses to break those negative cycles for our family. We do this by forgiving and “covering each other with grace.”

~A.R. (Alice) Cecil

Mediocre is for Sissys ?

30 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Adopted children, challenges of motherhood, expectations, frustration to freedom, Parenting, the healing journey

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mother watching kids board school bus

So this has been the year when I have had to face the fact that my daughter might never be “academic.” I always told myself that a “C” grade was okay, as it meant my child was average, and average means, well, normal. However, being an overachiever myself, I have struggled with making that sentiment a reality in my attitudes. The truth is, I don’t want my child to be “average.” I want her to be extraordinary.

This year, during parent and teacher conferences her teacher presented my daughter’s rank in the class. 17 out of 20. Ouch, that stung. First I got angry. Then, I felt embarrassed. I had trouble concentrating through the remainder of the conference. “17 out of 20?” I kept repeating it over and over in my brain. Then a slow but definite dislike for her teacher started to swell within me. “What a horrible thing to show a parent,” I thought. “What kind of a teacher are you?”

Truth is, the problem was mine and not her teacher’s. I was having the issue with my daughter’s ranking. My daughter quite happily goes to school and thinks her teacher is wonderful. If she is aware of her academic struggles, she doesn’t seem to notice. She is certainly not hung up on her class ranking. Should I be?

~Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

A Journey to Stepmother Love

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by in childhood memories, emotional needs, letting go of anger, stepmom relationship, the healing journey

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Step-mother-love-01I 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

STAIRCASE TO A BETTER PLACE AND TIME

27 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in childhood memories, emotional needs, encouraging each other, generations coming together, God's healing love, Learning to appreciate Mom, reach out and touch, the healing journey

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stairs

My mother turned 99 in January. She resides in a nursing home that feels like a prison. I must always wait in a glassed-in foyer to be buzzed into the hallway that leads to my mother’s room. And, I must always wait for a go-ahead signal in order to exit the building.

One of the nurses affectionately calls Mom, “99.” Mom laughs at her nickname. She recognizes the love behind it, and she appreciates the humor and attention. My mother is blind, cannot walk, eats only pureed food, sleeps most of the day, and will not—at 5 o’clock in the late afternoon—remember that one of her children visited at lunchtime. My siblings and I keep a calendar taped on the side of the wardrobe in her room, so we can sign our names on the days when we visit.

“See here where Ella came yesterday,” I say in order to make conversation.

“No,” Mom emphatically responses. “Ella has not been to visit for a long time.” My siblings and I never correct Mom. Why try to set her straight?

Once Mom asked me to go upstairs and get a blanket for her. There is no upstairs. In Mom’s mind, we are back in my childhood home. “There’s one right here,” I say as I walk over and open the wardrobe. Mom is satisfied, and the fact that there is no upstairs—that we are not in my childhood home—never becomes an issue.

Then, on another occasion, Mom invited me to eat with her. We were sitting together in the nursing home dining hall. Mom thought we were in a restaurant. “No,” I replied. “I’ll wait to eat with Joe when I go home.” She accepted my reason for not eating in the “restaurant.”

But, after the meal as I was pushing her wheel chair out of the room, she turned her head back to me and said, “Did you pay?”

“It’s taken care of,” I replied.

Lately, my mother wants to sleep through lunch. She is too exhausted to raise the spoon to her mouth. And when she tries to feed herself, the result is a mess. “Want me to feed you?” I now ask.

And, my mother replies, “Yes, please.”

I feed her like I used to feed my children when they were babies in the highchair. The task of feeding her brings fond memories to mind of my urchins with their beautiful, happy faces, playing “pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man; roll ’em up, roll ’em up; pitch ’em in a pan.”

My mother’s plate of food looks like the contents of baby food jars were deposited on it. I am forced to read her menu in order to learn that the light tan mush is chicken and gravy, and that the mossy green blob is seasoned green beans. I feed her like I used to feed my toddlers, even scraping food off her chin and from the corners of her mouth.

It is sad to see all this decline, but there is something very special about these times together. We are a very quiet twosome. Except for an occasional softly-spoken comment or question from me, we sit in silence. The moment is ours, and I do not want to share it with any of the other residents or nurses’ aides as they scurry about from table to table. “You’re doing a great job,” I say. “The plate is almost empty,” I inform. “Does it taste good?” I ask. “Do you want to eat more, or are you full?” I inquire.

Mother and child sit together in the “restaurant,” located in the “downstairs of my childhood home.” We share the quiet, reverent moment. But, who is the mother? Who is the child? Our roles have become as blurred as the space around us. I can’t imagine anyone around us, who is as happy as we are because our imaginations—rooted in faith—have knocked down the prison walls and have built a staircase to a better place and time.

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.)

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.

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~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