Buried in the fine print of loving others,
Spells out the risks we take when giving our hearts away…
In parenting…
In friendships…
In families…
In marriage…
That to be a parent, a friend, a family member, or spouse,
We’re vulnerable to
The “what if’s”,
The risks,
When sharing a piece of our heart with another.
While playing my hand safe in most areas of my life, I’ve always taken the risk and jumped off the deep end into relationships, giving the best of me while learning to swim when I found myself in waters way over my head.
Looking for a lifeline when a twenty-one year old version of myself, rocks her first child in the middle of the night. A newborn helpless and dependent on me for everything, I had to get this mothering thing right for his sake and for my daughter who is born to us five years later.
In over my head I’d risk it all for two children who’d be waving me good-by in eighteen years for a life of their own.
Mother’s don’t read the fine print of parenting; she willingly risks the tears of her heart through her children’s scrapes, their falls, their fails, their challenges, their growing up, and yes, their leaving because:
Mothers love when it hurts.
My mother loved this way six times over through the lives of her son and five beautiful daughters.
In over her head and floundering for a lifeline, a sixteen year old mother pacifies her newborn son in the midnight hour.
A mother, in some ways still a child herself; starts swimming the best way she knows how to stay afloat, risking it all by giving all of herself to a child surviving in the life preserver of his mother’s arms.
Back in the lonely days of early child-rearing, there wasn’t a village to assist my mother and her young son and soon to be five daughters who’d be born within a year or two between themselves.
Diapers weren’t disposable, and babysitters weren’t affordable. Mother leaned on God for inner strength while she flailed in the deep waters of parenting. Without sisters or the helping arms of an overworked and young husband himself, mother sowed the remains of her teenage years into the garden of her children, cultivating them in the admonition of the Lord.
A woman who gave all didn’t read the fine print of mothering; she willingly risked the tears of her heart through her children’s scrapes, their falls, their fails, their challenges, their growing up, and yes, their leaving for lives of their own because:
Mothers love when it hurts.
Buried in the fine print of loving others,
We’re vulnerable to
The “what if’s”,
The risks,
When sharing a piece of our heart with another.
Mother faced
The risk,
The “what if”
My child leaves me for Jesus,
While I’m still alive to face this painful good-by.
Mother attended the funeral for two of her young adult daughters,
Who left behind children of their own in their leaving.
“Mother’s should never have to bury their children”,
My mother lamented.
Grief hovered as a dark cloud over my mother’s life for years until sunshine broke through in her daughter’s memories.
My mother gave her heart away because;
Mothers love when it hurts.
Sunday, May 9, 2021 this daughter will celebrate the first Mother’s Day without her mother.
Mother’s Day crosses another milestone of firsts that we as her remaining family, navigate life through the maiden year without our matriarch.
Love hurts in good-by.
Love hurts in the empty seat.
Love hurts in the conversations you long to have.
Love hurts in the empty arms.
Love hurts at her graveside.
But grief which lingers as a dark cloud will one day be clear skies when sunshine breaks in our mother’s memories.
Always finding comfort, peace and joy in our loving God,
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
And saves the crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
Yes, love hurts.
But…
“Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson