I Am My Mother’s Daughter

On Saturday morning, I laid in bed staring into the black, silently barricading my heart in advance. My dear friend had convinced me to go with her to the Women’s Forum at 9:30am. They were going to talk about mothers. Ugh.

“I’m so tired of hurting. All I talk about, write about, help others with…it’s all hurt. I’m so tired of talking about a family I don’t have. I just want it to be done. Forever.”

I’d tried to pity my husband into telling me the night before that I didn’t have to go. I wanted him to tell me I should give myself a break from the past and focus instead on moving forwards.

He told me if I didn’t want to go that badly, I probably should.

And so I celebrated my little paper cup of coffee’s existence at 9:35am, sitting in front of me as I avoided talking to the women at my table.

I rarely talk about my mom. I have about my dad. About men in my life. About my mistakes. My sins. I’ve wrestled with the hurt that seeps into every girl’s life as she painfully bends and breaks into a woman. I’ve talked, written, and sought counseling and prayer for what feels like everything. But my beautiful mother’s place in my life has gone untouched.

Adjectives to describe my mother. I wrote down my brief list. I wrestled with the disparity between her extrovert, people-loving personality and the silent, thick wall of insecurity that radiated from her on many days. Then I listened to every single other woman talk about the contradictions in their mothers. Courageous, and unsure. Outgoing, and closed off. Kind, and selfish. Generous, and stingy. Hospitable, and judgmental. So very capable, and inexperienced. I wondered how my daughter would one day describe her mother, all the contradictions seeming to describe myself. It shot an unwelcome pang of conviction through my heart.

The emotions I felt rise in me when I talked about my mother. I journaled through a life-time of emotions in 25 minutes. Fragmented memories that I loved, and hated. Everything I treasured in her, the beautiful things I always tried to replicate in my own life to be just like her. Frustration, bitterness, confusion. Joy, mystery, grace. Disappointment, and questions. A woman I desperately want to know, as I see her reflection in my mirror every single morning. A woman I don’t know at all, and can’t know, other than the bits of her I find in my own heart. My own personality. My own insecurities.

I listened to some women sing praises about their mothers. Loving, accepting, full of grace. Helpful, close friend, ever present.

I watched more women cry as they asked if we would pray that Jesus would soothe the crippling frustration that consumed them every time they spoke with their mothers.

I watched mothers realize they’d forgotten to tell their children they were loved without condition. That they were fully accepted for who they are – that they are more than clean bedrooms and or failed homework assignments.

I felt anger swell in my chest as I heard women share stories of reconciled relationships with their mothers; mothers who fought for their daughters hearts and chose to find Jesus’ grace in all the same places, in the same ways. “I will never have that,” my spirit cried. “There is no hope. There is nothing I can do.”

And then I listened to a story of a remarkable woman. A woman who gave off life like the sun gives off light. A woman full of joy. A woman who had mothered 7 children and shared her heart with anyone who asked. An oak of righteousness, a place of safety.

When she was asked about her past, she replied, “I learned to take a punch from my mother.” Her mother had tried to kill her, and in the Emergency Room, bitterly remarked that her daughter’s life wasn’t worth the $30 co-pay. She ended her story with this: “There are three kinds of pain. The pain of getting worse, the pain of staying the same, and the pain of getting better.”

The pain of staying the same. I thought I’d been getting better, but all I heard in my ears was: “But it will always be the same. Always.I never asked for this. Why can’t she just love me. I have never seen eye to eye with her. Everyone here is better off than me. At least there is something to work on for them. For me, this will always be the same.” Without hope, you cannot move out of the pain of staying the same into the pain of getting better. The war of hopelessness is an excruciating war. A war impossible to win. The pain of staying the same.

And then, Isaiah 61 wrecked it all. “I will bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release them from darkness. I will comfort all who mourn, and clothe them in praise instead of despair. The Lord will plant them as oaks of righteousness. And they will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities, that have been devastated for generations.”

My God is not a God who forgets His promises. My God is one who fights wars in defense of his children, and His wars are never without hope. My God is a God who moves mountains, and forms the hearts of all men. My God is one who levels the playing field of all hearts, dealing out the grace that not a single one of us deserves. My God is one who sees every woman as both a mother and a daughter. All contradictions, all flaws, all pain.

This world is not one that has eternal influence over my life. My mother and I, we are but fleeting shadows, small flowers who fade. My mother and I, we are little girls in the eyes of God, desperate for his grace and fractured beyond our own repair. My pain of staying the same has been replaced by God’s promise to bind up, to free, to release, to comfort, to clothe – and by what will one day be rebuilt, restored, renewed.

I found more grace for my mother that day.

And I found enough hope to move into the pain of getting better.