Good Mom Died, Great God Lives
Dear God, I forgive my mom for dying, for abandoning me and causing me to feel neglected and unloved for so long.
I prayed this prayer in December 2019. Before then I didn’t know I desperately needed to.
She is a life giver — caretaker and protector. She is conviction — all loving and full of wisdom. She is a refuge — a safe place and sweet embrace. She will move heaven and earth to get to you. She is mom or mum depending on where you grew up in the world. I am, you are, the apple of her eye and she will hide you under the shadow of her wings.
Mother’s Day is joyous. It holds space for single mothers working multiple jobs to provide her child with the life she dreamt living. The world collectively pauses to celebrate the beauty and acknowledge the complexity of what it means to be a mother, sister, aunt and a wife. Today and everyday I celebrate you.
Mother’s Day is also painful. It will take you places you’d rather not go. The world collectively pauses and acknowledgement is met with grief as secret memories mourn losses and celebratory moments are lost in forgotten silence. This day feels empty — a void, a longing for. This day leaves much to be healed. It is an exposure to open wounds, except wounds left untreated won’t dry up. This is Mother’s Day for many of us who lost our mothers, but especially those like me who lost ours before our very first memory.
For those who don’t know what a real mother’s love feels like, today I honor you.
“This day feels empty — a void, a longing for.”
Mother’s Day was not always painful or maybe it was, but I am good at living in the present. Overtime, it became my personal day of mourning because a bitter tree was planted when I laser focused on how my friends interacted with their moms. I observed their beautifully reciprocated friendship; how their moms went above and beyond to meet their needs. This act of seeing began my mourning. I wondered how different my life would be if I had received the same guidance and nurturing or if I had my mom as an advocate, a ride or die, a cheerleader in my corner. This led me to believe the lie, “I’ll never know what a real mother’s love feels like.” Doubt about who I am crept in, “Do I smile like her? Is my personality like hers? Was she a kind and selfless woman? What did she like? What would she say about all the boys I liked?” For twenty six years I never cared to ask these questions because I felt uncomfortable. The reality is I won’t get answers.
The author, Malcolm Gladwell, refers to those who lost a parent or both early in life as “eminent orphans”. We are highly likely to be successful. Galdwell notes the loss of a parent in childhood is a traumatic burden, no question. Yet, it instills resilience to life shocks making us tougher than our peers. I deeply resonate. If any good thing came from losing my mom it is my resilience and my can-do, figure-it-out, fix-it attitude.
Not much shakes me, it’s true, but for the last few years Mother’s Day evoked feelings which guided me on healing journey. I shared my story with a stranger and she led me in prayer, “God I forgive my mom for dying…”. Tears flooded my face.
I am not shy about telling my story because God cannot heal what we conceal. The more I expose pain, the more God trades it for gifts of love. I am convinced God’s love has broken every negative stereotype and statistic I faced by missing primitive nurturing from a real mother. How comforting is it to know God is not disconnected from our pain? In Psalm 22:9-10 (ESV) David said, “yet you are He who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.”
God is not distant. He is closer than we know.
“God cannot heal what we conceal. The more I expose pain, the more God trades it for gifts of love. ”
I would be remiss to disregard God’s kindness to me. A few women God placed in my life — whether for five days or five years — championed me in simple ways. Their generosity and kindness challenged me, encouraged me and reflected a glimmer of a good mother’s love. A mother beams with pride for her children so perhaps it’s true nothing on earth compares to the love of a mother. I don’t know this for sure, but I do know my God beams with pride for me and calls me His own.
God sees you, he knows the hurt and he doesn’t want you to stay there.
In human form mothers embody the nurturing nature of God. In spirit form comfort is received from the Holy Spirit. If you lost your mother or never had a loving relationship with her I want to say I’m sorry. It’s not okay you feel abandoned, neglected and unloved. This is not God’s intent. The pain we feel can be met by His healing.
He is a life giver — caretaker and protector. He is conviction — all loving and full of wisdom. He is a refuge — a safe place and sweet embrace. He will move heaven and earth to get to you. He is Jesus or Yeshua depending on where you grew up in the world. I am, you are, the apple of His eye and He will hide you under the shadow of His wings.
My mother died age thirty-five — too young, perhaps too soon. She embraced the pain of a broken world. Today I embrace the sacrificial love of Christ on a cross. I live in the fullness of His embrace, no good thing will He withhold from me. This is my story: good mom died, great God lives.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on the unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18