Mother’s Day naturally has me thinking about my mom and reflecting on our relationship. Unfortunately, I lost her to cancer several years ago. Thankfully, her pain and suffering lasted only months, which is something I will always be grateful for. She went so quickly, I never thought of her as a struggling old person either, which I feel is another a huge blessing. I miss her, of course, but I must confess our relationship was not all sunshine and roses. We were both flawed, which caused us to unintentionally hurt each other on probably more than one occasion. I managed to maintain a close connection with her even after she retired down south, but I admit there were times I did it more out of a sense of obligation than a sincere desire. She was often pessimistic which could be depressing. Past hurts lead her to be defensive and she could hold a grudge with the best of them. While hindsight helps me to clearly see the reasons for her behavior, I still find it difficult at times, even now, to put some of that hurt behind me.
Given that, I find I must intentionally focus on the good aspects of our relationship to avoid being continually burdened by the bad. I know she loved me and she did the absolute best she could. Since I know I’ve made mistakes with my own kids, I pray they can one day overlook my failures too. The greatest thing my mom did for me was to plant a seed of faith in me as a child. To my mind, there is no greater gift you can give. While it was completely up to me to make that faith my own, it’s quite possible I would not have done so without the firm foundation and consistent example she set for me. I separated myself from the church during my college years and early on in my marriage and it would have been easy for me to go the way of the world, but God graciously continued to pursue me because of that mustard seed of faith planted by my mother. It was my desire to do the same for my own children that caused me to make the leap from being merely a believer to a follower of Christ.
It’s that same faith that comforts me now that my mom is gone and oddly enough it’s the flaws in our relationship that have me anticipating our eventual reunion even more. You see, the next time I see her, our bond will be completely perfect. The love we had for each other here will pale in comparison to what our eternal relationship will be like because all of the past hurts will be wiped away. The things that bothered us the most about each other will no longer be a factor and only pure love will remain. My earthly mind cannot truly comprehend how amazing that is going to be.
I do wish I had been quicker to forgive and overlook her weaknesses while I still had her with me, but I have also learned it does no good to have regrets. I choose instead to learn from those mistakes and do my best to not repeat them with my own children.
I often hear mother’s say all they want is for their kids to be happy. I believe that happiness is fleeting and is often a selfish pursuit, so I disagree with that sentiment. I desire instead for my kids to strive to be holy, following hard after Christ, so we can all look forward to those perfect unions that we are promised when we accept the sacrifice made for us on the cross.
My mom suffered greatly in this life. She spoke of feeling unwanted by her own mother, she lost a child at birth and watched two of her three remaining daughters fight for their lives with different forms of cancer, she divorced and had other relationships fail, but to her credit, her faith never faltered. Instead, it grew stronger as she sought comfort from the only true source of lasting peace. All of this set a quiet example for me to follow. God willing, I will do the same for my own children and for generations to come.
That’s why I vow to keep following. One day at a time.