I wrote this piece several years ago, but it seems the perfect time to post it here. My mother has truly been one of the greatest blessings of my life. So many mothers have been the same to their children, and though I feel I have a special corner on the great mom market, I know there are many other strong, courageous, selfless women out there who have given so much that may have gone unnoticed. Today I encourage you to take a deeper look at the woman you call mom.
On Christmas Eve in our family we
normally allow one another to open a gift of little importance. This is the time to give away socks,
slippers, or other sundry necessities.
The special gifts we save for the actual day.
However, in
2003 I received something I treasure much more than socks and slippers. I received a piece of my mother’s history
and, consequently, a piece of her heart, in the form of a mother-daughter
journal I had given her two years earlier. Few things accurately portray our
inner selves as do our written thoughts, and that Christmas Eve, when I once upon a time would lie listening for Santa, I sat up
late... reading my mother’s thoughts.
I learned
about her faith and her fears, what makes her happy or sad, what her hopes have
been for herself and for me. Because my
mother and I have always been extraordinarily close, I already knew so much
about her, but I marveled as I read. I marveled
at the depth of the human soul, at the many facets of what makes us who we
are. As I read, it struck me how truly
knowing someone takes a lifetime.
We become
who we are as we experience life. I
wasn’t introduced to my mother until her twenty-sixth year. I missed those early years that played such a
role in forming her character and personality.
I’d heard the stories and seen the pictures, but I couldn’t truly get
inside her early life until I read her thoughts.
I began to
understand her fears and hopes, her interests and surroundings. I began to understand the formation of her
identity. For a little while, in my mind,
I walked in my mother’s shoes, experiencing her joys, crying her tears.
Her simple answers to common
questions reached deep and revealed a woman whose life and character had formed
through difficult experiences and joyous blessings. I realized then how deeply affected a child
is by their parents and their parents’ history.
I find it
amazing how God uses humans to form other humans. We aren’t made of magic formulas, we don’t
simply happen... we become. In my
becoming, I credit many people and situations; however, my mother has always
played an irreplaceable role. As a
child, I woke up to her tea kettle whistle in the morning and fell asleep to
her story recitations at night. I spent
my days at home with her, listening to her talk on the phone, watching as she
cooked dinner, dusting by her side. I
grew up in her comfortable shadow.
On that Christmas Eve, I understood
even more about who my mother is. The
woman that I know is the child who grew not only through times of joy and
laughter, but also through times of tragedy and dismay. She is the teenager who giggled with her
friends and shed tears of heartache. She
is the young woman who struggled to hold together marriage and family while
providing joy and security to three small children.
She is
everything that life has made her.
And I am
everything that life has made me through her.
