No Matter What

If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been. ~Robert Brault

My hands are beginning to look like hers. Worn, creviced, and etched with time. Hers were soft to the touch though, not like mine. I miss her hands. My mother had the softest hands and when she wiped my tears and caressed my face, all my troubles vanished. How is that so? The power that a mother holds, quite literally, in the palm of her hands, can change lives.

Proverbs 1:8, tells us that the teaching of your mother is indeed worth listening to; Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

My mother gave me jewels of advice I wish I had taken more seriously at an earlier time, and now I can hear her words ringing in my ears, “You won’t know or understand the depths of my love until you have a daughter of your own.” So many times she tried to warn me of this danger or that, but I had to touch the flames a few times myself, before I believed the fire was hot. Currently, I see my children look at me the way I looked at her and I cringe. I love them deeply. Desperately. I know what she was talking about. I know the prayers she must have prayed for me. In fact, undoubtedly, without her prayers, I would’ve been in dire straits more than once.

Motherhood itself is profound and cannot be properly expressed or explained to one who is not yet a mother. I had no idea how much my children would teach me, or even better, what God, through my children would teach me. Just when I think I’ve got this down, here comes a curve ball! Topically speaking, I’m afraid to list the latest turmoil in our house, mainly because it would seem detrimental, then boastful. Neither of which I am ready to spew publically. (Perhaps, years from now, in some sort of young-couples-newly married, expecting-their-first-baby-type situation…) Maybe.

For now, my thoughts are as follows: Home school them-no matter what! (We can’t avoid sin just because we keep them home.) Catechism reminds us regularly how great our sin and misery are and eventually, the kids begin to grasp it. Love them wildly! “Love is violent to save.”

My mother was my biggest fan. When I felt ugly or like I belonged on the Island of Mis-fit Toys, she assured me it wasn’t so. “They’re just jealous.” she’d say. She loved me, no matter what. Ten years gone and I miss her all the more.

She climbs up and I snuggle with the 3 year old wiggly body with voice blaring loud, “Read a story. This one.”   It’s one of her favorites.

“This one?” I say. “No Matter What?” That’s the title. “Yes.” She says certain. “Okay. No Matter What.” I say. Because I love her. And I mean it. No matter what.