Tag Archives: Mother’s Day

The Imperfect Job of Mothering

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, encouraging each other, expectations, frustration to freedom, generational patterns, importance of prayer, leaving a legacy, Parenting

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blue-orchids

Is life coming at you like the balls that are shot out of the machine at a batting cage? In that vulnerable place, is your only hope to swing at each new, in-your-face incident, hoping to connect with a few? That has been—and still is—my prayer and hope.

My nest has emptied. Though—praise the Lord—it occasionally fills back up. But I remember those days when I was standing with a bat in my hands and my heart in my throat, as one new challenge after another zoomed at me. Daily I was required to step up to the plate. By the grace of God I connected with the important ones. However, I also missed my share. As I have told my children, who now have children, it’s all about the track record.

We cannot do a perfect job. Our children will be fine if our track record has more hits than misses. If we dwell on the missed or messed-up opportunities, we will be too preoccupied to see the next ball when it comes our way. Anyway, our children aren’t counting. They are more perceptive than we give them credit for being. They see Mom up at the plate, bat in hand. They understand she isn’t perfect. In fact, they are more comfortable in a loving, imperfect environment than in one where Mom thinks she is in control of everything. (Notice: I could not say, “one that is perfect.” There are no perfect situations. My only alternative was to express the above comparison as “one where Mom thinks she is in control of everything.”)

We have hit on something here! A mother’s unrealistic outlook can create bad circumstances—one for herself, and one for her family. From such an artificial scenario, a tired, sad mom—and confused, angry children—will emerge. On Mother’s Day, Mom will not hear accolades of, “Thank you, thank you for giving your all to project perfection!” Rather, she will be amazed at the resentment that all those efforts will reap.

Children who live in reality and learn how to accept their imperfect environments are better prepared for life. Herein lies the legacy that our children will be able to vocalize to their children: “Well, I’m going to miss some of the balls that come my way, but I will show up everyday, sincerely focus, and try to connect with each new challenge. And in addition, you—my dear offspring—will have a front row seat to watch how a person can appropriately respond to those missed or messed-up challenges.”

Then, their children—our grandchildren—will grow up and be able to echo the same authentic witness.

More importantly, all these generations will understand the real power behind the successes and how their mothers were able to humbly accept the imperfections of life. This witness takes place when, before they see their mothers step up to the plate, they see them down on their knees.

~ A.R. (Alice) Cecil

A Mother’s Day Gift to my Sons

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in generations coming together, God's healing love, leaving a legacy, mother wounds, Mother's Day, the healing journey

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The last time I saw my mother alive was seven years ago over Mother’s Day weekend.  As I wrote in “Walking My Mother Home,” my story in Journeys to Mother Love, these trips back home were instrumental to my healing.

In 2012, during the editing process of the book, I decided to give the manuscript as a gift to my sons.  After my mother’s passing the year before, I’d had a heartfelt conversation with them. I tried to explain the significance of what had happened to me.  Now with the imminent publishing of the story “for the whole world to see,” it was time to give the boys more personal insight into my healing and my journey to mother love.

Here is an excerpt from that letter:

Dear Boys,

As Mother’s Day approached this week, I’ve been reminded many times that the last time I saw my mother alive was on Mother’s Day 2010. A lot has happened in our lives in the two years since then…

Since you are males, you will probably never understand the bond between a mother and daughter. But you will marry one day and will have to understand and be caring with your own wife and the relationship that she has with her mother. I hope and pray that I can have a loving relationship with my daughters-in-law too.

As you know, I didn’t have a close relationship with my mother, not so much by choice, but by natural consequence because of her mental illness. As my mother neared the end of her life though, God made it very clear to me that I needed closure and restoration with our relationship. The attached manuscript is that story.

What I hope and pray you will see in this story is the same thing I want others to see—how following God’s will for our lives, through the good and the bad, leads to amazing blessings.  I want you to embrace opportunities when God wants to use you. It won’t be easy. But that is where the biggest blessings come into play—when we are stretched beyond our comfort zone and have to rely on Him. He shows up when we lean on Him. We just have to trust Him.

So as I start on my writing journey, I wanted you to know that is exactly what I am doing. I am trusting that God is behind this and that He will use it.

I love you both dearly. I hope and pray that when you look back at your lives that you will remember that legacy that I want to leave for you. I want you to trust God and follow Him all the days of your life.

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

With all my love,
Mom

My sons didn’t read my manuscript right away. They were teenage boys, after all. When they did, their words of love were a blessing back to me.

I have the same prayer for all who read my story and the other eight stories in Journeys to Mother Love. : May you be inspired by God to embrace forgiveness and healing in their mother/child relationships.  He will redeem your pain and give you peace.

~ Ardis A. Nelson

Dreading Mother’s Day

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by in emotional needs, encouraging each other, expectations, frustration to freedom, infertility, Mother's Day, the healing journey

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Kyleen-webKyleen

I dreaded Mother’s Day. I used to day dream about taking the weekend and going away to a spa … anything to get away from the constant reminders that I wasn’t a mother when I wanted so desperately to be one.

Church was torture: smiling mothers holding little ones’ hands, videos of children telling the congregation about their wonderful mommy, roses at the doorway for all the beaming mothers … TORTURE! I went through the motions, trying to disguise the tears that welled. I celebrated with my own mother hoping she didn’t notice how much I didn’t want to participate in this day. Then, at night I cried myself to sleep.

The pain of infertility and barrenness is difficult for many women. Wanting children, we will put ourselves, our families, and our bodies through the ringer in the pursuit of fertility. We watch the other mothers around us and wonder, Why not me? Our friends and family members who conceive easily struggle to relate to us, feeling uncomfortable around us and at a loss for words.

So what are we to do? During those most painful years, while I waited to be chosen as an adoptive mom and I struggled with the pain of childlessness, the only solution that provided any help at all was … surrender. I finally got to the place where I stopped fighting God’s will for my life and accepted that His plan was good, even if it was different from mine. I just told myself over and over: If God has given me this desire for children, then He will fulfill it. I chose hope over despair.

My part was to be open to Him working in a new, creative way in my life: perhaps He would give me spiritual children; maybe He would give me a ministry that would be like a child—something that I birthed and nurtured; maybe I would be called to raise other people’s children through foster care. Whatever His will, I had to trust that it was the best for me.

Ephesians 1:18 says, “I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.”

So this Mother’s Day, if you are a woman who is childless and brokenhearted, embrace hope.  If you are blessed with children, appreciate them; and encourage the other women around you who are childless and struggling.

~Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

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

Grace to Mothers (and Fathers) Grieving Aborted Babies

08 Friday May 2015

Posted by in emotional needs, forgiving yourself, Free to Love, God's healing love, grief and loss, healing after abortion, Mother's Day, Regret transformed, the healing journey, The power of honest sharing

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Sunset sky

Mother’s Day is painful for many people, for the bereaved, the childless, and those who suffer from post-abortion grief.

A few years ago I found my mother’s birth family, including three cousins, living not far from me. Recently I visited one male cousin the same age as me (he’s a Baby Boomer and Vietnam Vet, if that gives you an idea of our age).

Though he’s been married more than once, he has no children. Speaking of that fact, he got a little misty-eyed. Then he pointed to a memento sitting atop his TV: a ceramic baby booty. He said it represents a baby he fathered that the mother didn’t allow to come to birth. I know there’s always more to the story, and it’s true I don’t really know much about this “new” cousin’s past. I don’t know what that young woman years ago was going through, either.

I saw the tear in my cousin’s eye, though. And I heard the wistfulness in his voice when he told me he believed there was a child of his that he would meet in Heaven.

I was touched by the emotions of this man, over something that happened several decades ago.

A huge number of abortions have occurred in the years since abortion was legalized in America. If you believe as most Christians do, that babies and young children who die before the age of accountability go to Heaven; and if you believe that unborn babies are persons with eternal souls; then you believe as I do that all those aborted babies will be in Heaven. Perhaps they’ve been growing and developing in the nurture of Jesus and loving saints. Then, what a host of beloved children are waiting there.

My cousin obviously believes and hopes to meet his one child someday in the heavenly realms.

One of our Journeys to Mother Love contributors, Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton, has written movingly about her post-abortion experiences and healing. To my cousin and to Kyleen and to the many women and men who chose abortion when they felt trapped, hopeless, and helpless … the Lord of mercy and grace has healing, hope, and restoration for you. And He is taking care of your child. May that thought give you comfort this Mother’s Day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This video and the book it is based on, express the emotions that lead to and result from the choice of an abortion:

Grace to Broken Mamas on Mother’s Day

12 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, Gratitude, Learning to appreciate Mom, Parenting, the healing journey

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Mother's Day card from a child

I was cleaning my kitchen and an image of the upcoming Mother’s Day flashed in my mind. I pictured myself alone. By myself. No kids. No husband. Just me. It felt refreshing. Of course this mental image came right after all three of my children came in like a swarm of bees buzzing around me with, “Mama, can I have?” “Mama, can you get me?” “Mama! He hit me!” A constant buzz of wants, cries, and whines.

I pulled out a snack to calm these kiddos of mine. Looking at them sitting quietly (only because they had a mouth full of cocoa puffs), I resumed reality. I do want my Mother’s Day to be a celebration—more for the sake of my children, because I remember when I was a little girl excited to celebrate my mom. I would present her with the best handmade card ever created. Every year I gleamed with pride as I held out the pink construction paper fashioned into a fabulous declaration of “# 1 Mom!”. My mother accepted it with a smile, knowing that no matter how shaky my 5-year-old handwriting was, or how my crayon meant to draw a kitty cat that instead looked like a flat turtle with pointy ears, she loved it. I’m sure the idea of propping her feet up with a good book crossed her mind, but she always celebrated with her daughter instead.

Mother’s Day is a celebration. No matter how my relationship was with my mom, she decided to keep me, nurture me the best she could, and, simply, be my mom. I love her for that. And I thank God for knowing my mom would be the one for me.

Often times on the days when I feel so overwhelmed being a mother myself, I will hear an encouraging message reminding me of how God hand-picked me to be the mother of three creative, caring, spicy kids. They stretch my patience, my mind, and even my skin (as evident of the marks on my thighs!) But they also widen my heart and tame my selfishness.

I now understand my mom’s smile as she held the Mother’s Day card I made for her. She liked the card, sure; but she saw beyond the scribble. She saw a child, her child, drawing a different view of the world for her—a world that offered grace to a broken mama.

My sweet babies show me grace every day by wrapping their arms around me or cupping my face and saying, “I love you, Mama.”

Now that’s worth celebrating!

~Treva Brown

God Knows the Desires Of Your Heart

11 Saturday May 2013

Posted by in Adopted children, challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, expectations, feeling inadequate, God's healing love, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Violets in the gardenAs an adoptive mom, Mother’s Day brings many emotions. For years before my husband and I adopted children, I dreaded Mother’s Day. It reminded me of what I wanted and did not have. Even now, 8 years since we adopted our first child, I can still remember those feelings with surprising freshness. Infertility or barrenness is a difficult road to walk. Most young women assume motherhood will be a part of their life experience. When God has other plans, the shock and despair can be overwhelming. Given this, I thought it might be helpful to share how God helped me navigate this emotional mine field.

After my cancer and hysterectomy, I considered many options and struggled with much fear. My husband and I discussed surrogacy, adoption, foster care, and remaining childless. Many well-meaning friends tried to convince me that not having kids wasn’t such a bad thing, especially my friends with teenagers. Their warnings fell on deaf ears, however. I knew that my life would simply not be complete without children.

Four years later, with considerable pain, after deciding on adoption and still being without a child, I finally had to ask the question I dreaded: “Lord, do you not want me to have children?” What if He said “yes”? How could I reframe my life into a world that didn’t include children? It seemed impossible to me. And yet, I still had to ask. What I heard that day began to change my perspectives. In a still, small voice within my heart I heard, “Wait upon me and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

Wait…..  Okay Lord, but isn’t that what I have been doing? Four years of waiting is a long time. What am I waiting for? Or better yet, what are YOU waiting for? Are you waiting on me?

Then one day God led me to 1 Samuel 1:1-20 and the story of Hannah. Barren and brokenhearted, Hannah was blinded by her grief. She had the love of her husband, his preference, in fact, over his other wife Penninnah who had given him children. Indeed, one day when Hannah was weeping, her husband asked her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than 10 sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8). Hannah’s  despair over being childless kept her from enjoying the blessings God had given her.

I realized I had been like Hannah, so consumed over the desire to be a mother that the sadness over what I wanted and did not have kept me from enjoying the good in my life, and there was so much good! I realized I had to surrender my will to God, believing his promise that if he chose not to make me a mother, he would fulfill the desires of my heart some other way. I started to see how God could provide spiritual children, a ministry, a career or so many other things that would fulfill my heart. I just needed to trust Him with my hopes and dreams.

Not long after that, the call finally came and a few months later we brought home a beautiful baby girl. I think God had been waiting for me to take that leap of faith and let go of my plans for my life. So if this Mother’s Day brings the pain of childlessness, let me encourage you to trust God with the desires of your heart. He may choose to bless you with children or He may choose to bless you in other ways. He made your heart and put your deepest desires there. He knows what will make you truly happy.

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton

I Don’t Know About Tomorrow

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by in childhood memories, God as our parent, losing mom too soon, the healing journey

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Cosmos flowers against a blazing sunset

Mother’s Day is always on a Sunday, and many of my memories of my mother happened on Sundays at church. I practically grew up in church. Often on Sunday mornings, from my perch on a front pew, I’d watch Mother rise from the piano bench to stand behind the pulpit and minister in song with her beautiful soprano voice.

Mother would give a brief testimony of God’s sustaining grace in her life, then convey the music and words of the song with a such a sweet spirit that hearts were softened and prepared to receive Daddy’s biblical message. As Mother sang, she’d often lift one hand in testimony to the words of the song, because she was finding them true in her own life. That was certainly the case when she sang one of her favorites: “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.”

In Journeys to Mother Love I shared briefly about the fire that burned our house down in the middle of the night when I was four years old, and the resulting trauma I experienced, as well as God’s wonderful provision and healing. I didn’t have space in the book to tell more background of how the Lord prepared Mother for that trial and assured her of his love and presence even as we walked through the flames.

The night of the fire our parents had taken my little sister and me with them to a campmeeting service. In that service a soloist stood and sang a wonderful new song with such anointing that throughout the auditorium people wiped tears from their eyes. Mother was deeply touched and, as she went to sleep that night, the words of the song rang in her mind as if God himself were speaking them to her:

I don’t know about tomorrow; I just live from day to day.

I don’t borrow from its sunshine, for its skies may turn to gray.

I don’t worry o’er the future, for I know what Jesus said;

And today I’ll walk beside Him, for He knows what is ahead.

… And the path that is my portion may be through the flame or flood;

But His presence goes before me, and I’m covered with His blood.

Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand;

But I know who holds tomorrow, and I know who holds my hand.

–words and music by Ira F. Stanphill

Later that night, the one who grabbed my hand and held it tight as we fled fearfully through the burning house was my mother. And the One who held her hand, and had given her an assurance of that only a few hours earlier, was her heavenly Father.

I’m glad Mother was there in my childhood and youth. The One who walked beside her knew about the cancer and suffering and death that lay ahead for her. He knew we would lose her so young. But what she experienced and testified to and taught us continues to hold true for me as I move into uncertainties of my older years: He knows! He holds tomorrow in His hands. And He will continue to hold my hand.

~ Cathy Lawton

Is Mother’s Day Painful for You?

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in encouraging each other, feeling inadequate, forgiving mom, forgiving yourself, God as our parent, the healing journey

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flowers

How many of us, if we were really honest, would admit that we don’t look forward to Mother’s Day? We dread this day devoted to celebrating mothers. It conjures up feelings of inadequacies in our own parenting or maybe how we didn’t live up to the expectations our parents had for us. Maybe it even reminds us of the shame or condemnation we felt at the hands of our parents—especially our mothers.

Mother’s Day isn’t always about bouquets of flowers or a box of chocolates for mom. Sometimes it is filled with bitter memories of a childhood loss due to abusive parents, a longing for the birth mother we never knew, or regrets from things we said or did that can’t be taken back. Maybe your mother has died and you miss her presence in your life.

Those kinds of painful memories can also leave us questioning God or turning our back on him. Ultimately, I think, Mother’s Day can leave us yearning for something more.

What is that something more? It is the filling of the hole in our heart left by unforgiveness and broken dreams. How do we fill it? Maybe we turn to alcohol, drugs or sexual fantasizing; or maybe it is to acceptable forms of addictions like busyness and people pleasing—whatever it takes to make the ache go away. Haven’t we all done it or experienced it to some degree?

To all of you daughters and mothers who are in a painful place this Mother’s Day, I empathize with you; for I used to be there too. Don’t give up hope. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV).

We can choose how we want to react to all of these circumstances. We can choose to walk in the light and hope of Christ, or we can choose to walk in the doom and gloom of the past. The past doesn’t need to define us. We have a choice.

As believers, we belong to the family of God, the body of Christ. If we don’t have a mother who bonded with us or nurtured us in loving ways, we can still get that kind of nurturing from our spiritual family and friends. Our family of birth does not have to define us. It is Christ and the family of God that define our identity.

Every day can be a day to celebrate mothers, if we view it from God’s perspective. Choose joy.

Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you (2 Corinthians 13:11, NLT).

~ Ardis A. Nelson

A Gift of Flowers

06 Monday May 2013

Posted by in generations coming together, Gratitude, leaving a legacy

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Purple tulips with card

My sweet mother has been gone from her home on earth for more than forty years, but I still think of her every spring about this time. For several reasons: first my birthday is towards the last of April and that day years ago Mother gave me life. Also, even though she already had four living children and couldn’t afford another, she gave me love and nurturing. And, of course, Mother’s Day is coming up soon.

But more importantly, I think of Mother because spring is the planting season. Mother taught me the love of gardening and how to plant each seed, each bulb and each small, rooted plant. She showed me the way to clip cuttings from geraniums and roses and other plants to start new growth, thereby having a cheap way to multiply beautiful flowers and shrubs.

I recall the first day in early spring when I drove the few blocks to Mother’s house and together we spent the morning browsing in a nearby nursery looking to buy tomato plants. Mother reminded me my birthday would be soon and said she wanted to buy me a gift of flowers that were already in bloom, that I could plant in the yard. A lovely present that lasted all summer! I chose red salvia and a blue flower (I don’t recall the name). Usually I planted seeds and had to wait for blooms. The luxury of immediately having plants in bud or full bloom thrilled me.

When Mother’s Day arrived I gathered a pretty bouquet and presented them to Mother. And so the ritual between us was started. I am happy to say it continued for many happy years. Mother lived to be almost ninety-three and continued to garden on a small scale until about two years before her death.

To this day I enjoy digging in the dirt. It is difficult for me to stoop, so I have purchased large pots I can use outdoors. When spring comes each year I rejoice in the new life of the birds and I never fail to think of my mother and the joy she brought into my life with the love of gardening. I only hope she can look down and share the happiness with me this year. I am passing on the love she taught me to my great-grandson, and I think that as long as the earth stands and plants grow, my mother will not be forgotten.

In a few days I’ll say again this year, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mother. I LOVE YOU!”

~ Verna Simms