The Heart of a Mother: For Mother’s Day

“I hate you,” she said, her 7-year-old self going to the bus, hoping to give me one last dig before she left for the day, certain that I had ruined hers, she was bound and determined to ruin mine.

As usual, my husband and I, me still in my pj’s, stand at the door, and wave good-bye. I think, “what’s the point?” but I wave anyhow, my soul thrilled that her fingers are trained to wave even when her heart wants to hurt instead.

I should have known this thing called motherhood would bring the pain. My body ached, swollen three times over, stretched and made big. Motherhood has always brought the pain. The ache of the back, the sleepless uncomfortable nights, the fear that my body would not do its job constant, the labor of childbirth, just the beginning of the crown of beauty from ashes story each mother is given. Each day its own opportunity to find limitless joy from the ache of motherhood.

So too, I am aware that I am a daughter. As much as she “hates” me now, perhaps one day she will view me like I have viewed my own mother. The lens of my sight sometimes harsh from the cataracts of ignorance. Me too full of my self and my need to see my mother from the Creator’s eyes.  A real life person separate from me and my needs. I am aware that just as my mom cannot fill the holes I wanted her to fill, so I will not fill hers. And I am happy-sad, the familiar ache of gladness and mourning because I cannot be her god and meet each need, but I know He can.

I signed up for the glory of motherhood – the laughter and unending love and the esteem. Like so much of my life, I thought it would come in my perfection and making right what I thought had been wrongs of prior generations. Thankfully, I was utterly wrong. As a mother, I don’t want to fail, but every day in one way or sixty others, I do. Yet, I think somehow it is in these failures, we glean the most from one another – my children and I. In my weakness, His glory completely seen. A weak fragile shell needing a Savior. Me unable – He completely able, working perfection in my imperfection. The children offering me the grace that only He gives – not expecting me to be perfect at all.

Perhaps the pain and the hard and ugly and difficult of motherhood does not equal the beauty and joy unending. But each day is given its own measure of pain and joy, rooting me deeper into the plumb line of His love.

A Father created the heart of a mother. The tenderest of mothers never as tender as the Father. Her love in her lunch making and standing over the stove, cooking and cleaning to bring food and fellowship to the table. A holy and high calling.

This God-Father understanding more than we as mothers. We all birthed not knowing, but He birthed knowing. His children would hate and turn away and He would keep on cooking and loving and providing and doing – loving in action like only He does. Having in mind not just the good and chosen children, but the fallen and forgotten, the ones too weak and wayward, to seem to be of any worth.

He knows the heart of a mother, willing to give until it hurts, because His heart gives more than the givingest mother. He gives until He bleeds. He gives the only Son He knows. And He knew this would be the pain He would birth as Abba Father.

His love enables every mother-child of His to give their children a love unimaginable, to keep loving even when it hurts. To keep fighting when the strength is gone. To trade one life for another, in hopes of a new life.

I yell to her as she leaves, “You will apologize when you get home,” for fear that her conscience may not tell her to make right the wrong.

The bus swings around the circle, the kids climb off, and her head hangs low.

“Sorry,” she says.

“What?”” I say.

“Sorry – you told me to apologize when I got home.”

“Do you want to?” I say.

“Of course, I could not say if it I didn’t mean it.”

I am temporarily satisfied and she is too.

Later I watch her pat her brother’s back, lean into his ear, whisper words of encouragement, and my heart swells. This not her natural stance, but a glimpse of glory divine, her imitating me, me a picture of the Father’s love given again and again. And I think there is hope in me yet for beauty amidst the pain of motherhood. Thanks be to the God above.

Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons user: Jessie Pearl

And yes, I am perfectly aware that givingest is not a word. 🙂

Linking up with The Better Mom, Jennifer Dukes Lee, Mama Moments Monday, and Deep Roots at Home.