Mother's Day

This is one of the very few pictures I have of myself and my mother together and actually smiling. This was taken in 1995, about a year after I left home for college and had some recovery time away, so that we were actually starting to have a good time during visits and becoming friends.


Our mother-daughter relationship had been terrible for most of my life. It was a classic case of being two totally different people living in a very confined space together, with one similarity... stubborness - we made a horrible combination. We were nearly complete opposites in our personalities, theologies (both Christian), attitudes, and generations (she had me when she was 40 years old - so there was a definite generation gap growing up). My husband compares her to Ray's mom on the TV show "Everyone Loves Raymond" - only that mom character is not as extreme towards Debra as my mom is towards... well, everyone. It certainly didn't help that I was a difficult kid to her either. I didn't get saved until after I left home - so it was pretty much miserable for both of us until I was 18.

This past August, my mom suffered a heart attack, and immediately under went a quadruple heart by-pass surgery. She survived - not so gracefully, and in no time she was back to being her old mean self again. But before she was all healed up and just released from the hospital to recover at home, I went up and stayed with her and dad for about a month to help out. What a crazy paradox of emotions was that month for me - it impacted me for life! For the first five minutes I first saw her after her near death situation, I was overcome with compassion, concern, and more love for her than I can ever remember feeling ever, she looked so pitiful and in so much pain I would have done anything to ease her of it... and then she started talking - and then all love flew right out the window. For the rest of the month I was mostly there out of obligation, because she was my mother, and not because I wanted to help her to get better. It was that close proximity again - I know it was, it's like some sort of weird chemistry - two elements that should not ever be put together or a big destructive explosion would occur. The waves of emotion would come and go - one night in particular, I remember her needing something in the middle of the night, and as I was getting it for her, I felt so scared that she might actually die, and in the next minute she said something that rubbed me so far the wrong way that I was suddenly tempted to finish her off myself. The power my mother has over me is crazy. Only she can stir me up like that, and I suppose it's because I care.

Anyway, I'm very grateful that I still have her here on this earth with me this Mother's Day. For as much as she can get under my skin (as I'm sure is a universal motherly trait), she also has her good points. I love her very much and looking back, I am glad God created me under her stewardship. I certainly wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't have her to struggle with all those years! :) She's 70 years old now and I pray every day that God will give her at least 10 more healthy, happy years here before going Home to Him.

This goes out to all the mean, abusive mothers in the world - because maybe I'm the only one who will say it to you ... Happy Mother's Day! God knows you and loves you beyond words! He can use any evil or pain and and turn it around for good if we love Him and let Him.