Tag Archive | sorrow

Author Confessions: Mother’s Day Thoughts

May12
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Author Confessions: Mother’s Day Thoughts

It is the day after Mother’s Day and I’m not sure, if you are a woman, how it went for you. I’m writing this before the day so my mind is mulling this around.

Mother’s Day Fiction?

How does this relate to fiction? How often, in reading a book, do you find this day on the calendar entioned? Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, maybe, but other holidays don’t get much attention, including Resurrection Sunday/Easter.

Mother’s Day can be a mixture of so many emotions, and not a comfortable one to explore in a story meant to entertain so the holiday is likely not to feature in a story.

Mother’s Day

Maybe Mother’s Day has more to do with fiction when I first thought of writing this. The cards in the stores and the push for gifts all make it seem to promote a fiction over things that are not true.

  1. All Mothers are happy
  2. All mothers are wonderful and perfect
  3. All children want to honor their mother

I’m sure there could be more lies out there but let’s look at these specifically.

All Mothers are Happy

Motherhood is a difficult job and whether a mom has a job other than the full time mothering or not, it is a difficult, exhausting job. Any mom who acts like it is all sunshine and roses is lying. Most moms struggle to do well and many fear they are failing. There are so many opposing positions that make it difficult to make choices for fear of being maligned for those choices. Add marital challenges, finanical struggles, behavioral issues, a variety of personalities with some clashing (especially if the child is a lot like you!), discpline challenges, possible health issues (mental, emotional, or physical), and then the spiritual challenges if you are trying to raise your child in the Christian faith. There is not any one perfect way to handle any of these. Add the residual grief from children lost due to miscarriage, stillbirth, SIDS, or any other reason that might result in a child dying, there can be deep sorrow that never leaves.

This doesn’t meant there isn’t great joy in being a mother. I still remember how tired I was with my second child. I timed how much of my day was spent nursing him and it was eight hours! He was a lazy feeder but such a snuggler! While I struggled with being forced to sit, rock and feed my little sweetie, I also miss those days when he would snuggle in. There is joy in seeing child grow up and find his or her way. It can also be a grief when they struggle to be an adult and you need to step back and allow them the freedom to fail.

Children can choose to reject a mom as well. No matter how much a mom gave of time, love, attention and yes, sacrifice, a child can grow up and decide you weren’t good enough to be respected, honored, or remembered. Maybe they’ve been lied to by someone else. If that was an especially difficult child, there is a silver lining in not needing to deal with the drama and stress that person might bring with them.

When my kids were little, my oldest child drew a picture of me and he saw me as angry. I realized I wasn’t regulating my emotions and stresses well around my children who I was with all the time. I worked hard on that and when my second child was in grade school he wrote that his mom was always happy. Maybe I went too far? I had to tell him that I do have sad moments too, but those are not burdens for a child to carry so I tried to be happy and encouraging around them regardless of the worries and burdens I carried inside.

All Mothers Are Wonderful and Perfect 

This is an outright lie but the truth is, the majority of moms really try hard to do the best they can and yet we all fail at some point. We lose our temper, or fail to discpline as well as we should. Or struggle to understand an unusual personality that is so different from ourselves that we struggle to parent.

These issues don’t resolve when the child leaves home either. We all make mistakes and have expectations or desires that are not necessarily going to be fulfilled. It should be my kids seeking to connect. Will they? I write this before the day but my expectations are low because I realize how much I failed to do so with my own mother when I was their ages.

I honored my mom before the day because her plans will keep us apart on Mother’s Day.

All Children Want to Honor their Mother

As I mentioned, not all kids are clued in to this. Perhaps it was not modeled or encouraged by their father. That is the case from my own family. While I encouraged them to honor their dad, it was never reciprocated. Without a tradition or history of doing this, how is a young adult going to even remember that the day exists when they are busy working and paying their own bills?

From a child’s perspective (even they are now an adult), if that parent was abusive in any way, it can be hard to want to honor them or even recognize them any day, much less on Mother’s Day. With an un unhealthy mom, sometimes it is healthier to keep a distance and no contact.  However, a child can still honor her in his prayers and by not fostering anger and bitterness.

Mothers Day Is Complicated

We all have a mother, whether they are still alive or not, whether they are safe or not, whether they are in our lives or not.

What about those who decided they didn’t want ot be moms because it was inconvenient and aborted a child? There is deep sorrow that goes with that whether they recognize it or not. Every Mother’s Day there will be a shadow of the child that could have been.

Some would idolize Jesus’s mom, Mary, but she was as human and fallible as any of us. She too, was human, imperfect, and I’m sure she failed time and again in trying to raise the Son of God to adulthood. She was chosen for a task. God chooses every mom to be a mother to the children He decides to place in their lives, for however long He chooses. They are ultimately His and we may only have them for a short time.

We need to be careful not to idolize moms no matter how wonderful they can be, because a mom can only be wonderful if she’s leaning on our Savior Jesus to do the difficult task we’ve been called to. God gives us grace for the hard times and forgiveness for our mistakes. We can only hope and pray that our children will do likewise.

Happy Belated Mother’s Day. No matter what sorrows or joy you experience, any mom was called by God to do this job which is one of the hardest on earth. Cling to Him with all the good and bad, the successes and failures, and rest in Him. God loves you, Mom.

Unmet Needs

Aug9
Reading Time: 4 minutes

This post was written by Cheryl Cross: a friend, missionary, amazing mom and wife who always seems to smile and exude grace. I hope you are encouraged by her words like I was.

There have been many times when I have felt “in the pit,” not because of my own sin nor because of a lack of intimacy with God. Yet I’ve sat there, bearing the burdens of this world, wishing God would just simply make me feel better as I face the onslaught. God, though, sometimes wants me to sit there, recognizing that this world and the people in it often bring me pain. There is sorrow that God won’t erase even with his perfect peace and unending joy.  That’s when I look to His word and see this: Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. Seriously, God?  When my earthly need of feeling loved and accepted and wanted and cherished is unmet, You can make my heart glad? Is it possible to have a glad heart and have grievous pain at the same time? I’m beginning to believe it. I’m not there yet; I don’t have it all pulled together. But when I think of those moments when the tears flow abundantly, I meet the Lord in a sweeter way than any other moment of earthly joy. That’s what He means. He designed us to have needs and wants that are met by our loved ones that He provides, but when those earthly needs are unmet, He sits with us in our sorrow.

This time, when the tears come, when the pain seems so overwhelming that it might break us, perhaps we can just sit and wait with God on the gladness of heart that only He can bring. Perhaps we can choose to press in to his tender arms and let the sorrow rain down around us. Lord, may I see You in the sorrow and not run away from You so that You may bring me gladness of heart.

Ecclesiastes 7

A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.

Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.

For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?

I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.