The Grace Guide by Susie Davis

Author:Susie Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

There’s nothing like

the joy of having

grown children who

want to spend time with

you. It speaks to

the unconditional love

they have for you,

which is

truly grace.

I love my children so much. I wish I could have presented them with a perfect mother at every age in their lives. A woman who was never selfish, fearful, or wrong. Instead they got the real me: a woman on a journey with God, growing into wisdom and wholeness.

I bet you feel the same. You want to be the best mother. One who never makes mistakes, never fails, and always presents the most accurate picture of God’s love in their lives. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? To be the perfect role model? There’s a real longing there, to be who God wants us to be for our people.

In my conversations with young women, I have found that longing to be a perfect mother is especially strong for women who didn’t have a good relationship with their own mothers. They seem to possess a fierce desire to right the wrong they endured as children by being the perfect mother. Or their picture of perfect.

I think of Amy, mama to two young ones, who told me her workaholic mother was always busy and emotionally distant when she raised her. As a result, Amy is a stay-at-home mom who continually makes ever-present decisions to “be” with her children. But she still worries it’s not enough somehow and that her children will feel an absence. Because Amy didn’t experience closeness with her mother, she feels she doesn’t know how to be close to her children, even though she’s trying as hard as she can. She feels restless and inadequate.

And then there’s Clare, mama to one young son. Clare’s mother suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder much of Clare’s childhood. Because of her mother’s illness, Clare’s childhood was a continual emotional rollercoaster propelled by the ups and downs of her mom’s manic-depressive episodes. Clare has a deep mother wound and constantly worries the lack of mothering she received impacts her ability to adequately parent her own son.

Both women still grieve their own mothers’ inability to give them what they needed when they were young. Both wish for a different, and healthier, relationship with their mothers currently. The losses from their own childhoods bleed into the parenting of their own children. And they know it, so it then creates a cycle of sadness, despair, and eventual resentment.

When I talk with Amy and Clare and listen to their stories, I can hear the ache in their voices. Their suffering is ever-present. Sometimes in moments of great transparency, I hear them worry aloud if they’ll somehow be just like their own mothers—present but absent. It’s a battle for them to overcome all the tension and the bitterness.

These conversations point to the fact that everyone has mother wounds. Because no mother is perfect. So every child at some point and time must be willing to forgive her mother for all the things. And there are so many things.

In my

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