I remember when I was about four waking from a bad dream. Crying out, I yelled for my mother. I wanted her there to comfort me, assuring me everything would be alright. She held and rocked me until I fell back to sleep. That’s what moms do. They love unconditionally and care for their children’s needs. God gifts mothers as natural nurturers.
Many years later, after my mother had passed away, I replied to someone saying, “Well, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” That shocked me. Where did that come from? I remember my mother saying that very same thing. Then I realized I am becoming my mother.
The older I get the more I appreciate Mom’s unconditional love, character, stamina, vigor and spunk for this thing we call life. The older I get the more I realize how very much like her I am becoming. The wrinkles, age spots, and flab under my arms show evidence of my natural “maturity,” but my mother’s faith, perseverance, determination, and values were infused direct from her to me long ago. That’s part of my DNA. I am her apple and she’s my tree. How grateful I am to have had a mother like mine. Although I may not cook and sew like she did, if I can be half the woman she was, that would be quite an accomplishment.
God made mothers. He had to be loving and nurturing first to form each mother with the unique motherly qualities she would need in her task of raising children. As Susan Watkins so eloquently states, “Our Father in heaven is solidly our Father. His maternal nature guarantees attendance at every bird’s funeral. Keeps track of 7.2 billion heads of hair. Tallies innumerable thoughts about us exceeding grains of sand. Stills our storms, heals our diseases, binds our broken hearts. Like the mother that deliberately forgets her child’s shortcomings, He casts our sins directionally as far as the east is from the west, until sinking to the floor of the Sea of Forgetfulness.”
Just like our mothers, God is there to wipe every tear; sitting up with us through the night; and listening to our troubles—solving them while we are yet speaking.
“Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters…” Ezekiel 19:10
Tagged: God’s love, grief and loss, mothers
