Mother’s Day is Almost Here
My Mother and Her Sister
Social media is remaking what could be a melancholy holiday. If my mother were alive, she’d be one hundred and five, and her sister, and my great friend, would would have been one hundred and two! They were great sources of reality checks.
When details of this old world, when sorrows and troubles overtake so many, I feel I am sobbing – sorry I contributed so few solutions, and despondent how silly I was not to have prepared better for the dark days that seem to crash upon us. But then I remember my own mother – and the many other women who “mothered” me – through dark days.
Most of them went through World War II and the Depression and endured news of the Korean War. They knew about Senator Joe McCarthy and his craziness. I remember my mother ironing, listening to the infamous hearings.
So when the 1960’s came upon them, through women like me, maybe their generation felt as perplexed as I do now. None of them had mothers still alive, to whom they could turn – to ask, what in the world is going on? That’s why I had a bright start this mother’s day – on Facebook.
Social Media Gave Me A Grip
First, I saw our precious son and his sons, and then a post of an ancient photo of him and me shortly before he became the big brother to our treasure of a daughter. Next, I scrolled through equally dear tributes to moms I never met, whose daughters are friends and acquaintances.
We all miss our moms — even those that drove us nuts!
Then I watched a mother’s day video“card” of Dr. Paul Tripp reminding me that as necessary as I once was for our children’s well-being, I am not their Messiah. It was a good and necessary tonic, for he explained that motherhood, as extraordinarily wonderful an experience as it is, also exposes my sins, foibles, and failures.
All the trips down memory lane that old photos are – remind me I wasn’t any June Cleaver, a fact my kids know is true, too. I have many regrets tucked in the shadows of the expanse of good, good memories.
Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger. ~Chinese Proverb
Right below Dr. Tripp’s comforting words, Dr. Ravi Zacharias wrote: Like a child who suddenly stops sobbing when he is clasped in the arms of his mother, such will be the grip of Heaven upon our souls.
My hope and prayer for my kids and their children and dear spouses is that Heaven and the God who is, will fight for them and with them, comforting them, and quieting them with His love. (Zephaniah 3:17)
If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been. ~Robert Brault,