...the best sorts of Mothering

Like a mother with her children You will comfort us each day,
giving guidance on our journey, as we seek to find our way.
When we walk through fiery trials, You will help us take a stand;
when we pass through troubled waters, You hold out Your tender hand.

—Jann Aldredge-Clanton 

My ideas of good mothering have matured along with me, being shaped by the act of mothering itself, moving from theory to practice and from toddling to dancing. Okay, okay...so, there  may  only be minutes that my mothering approaches the lithe grace of dancing, but you know what I mean. As my maturity as a mother has increased, I have grown to trust more in the preparedness, capability, and potential of my children, and to see my role as less of a rescuer. I’ve learned to provide more guidance and support  than unsolicited direction and dictation. And it is more and more evident to me that presence in the storms of life is to be desired over protection from any discomfort. Somehow I bet life is not through teaching me, either. 

When I look at the ways God loves me, I see the tender strength and steadfast presence of a Mother come through. Comfort, Guide, Courage, Presence—God embodies the best sorts of Mothering. And whether we had a mother who did for us, or not—imagine what it would feel like to know that we all have a God who mothers us so well.

Thanks be to our good God, whose love never fails. 

...for a reason

We are called to be God’s prophets, speaking for the truth and right,

Standing firm for godly justice, bringing evil into light.

Let us seek the courage needed, our high calling to fulfill,

That we all may know the blessing of the doing of God’s will.

---Thomas A. Jackson, 1973

Prophet. When I see the word, my mind goes to seers, oracles, fortune-tellers, or at least future-tellers. Some guy dressed in outrageous rags with a more outrageous hair-do, straight up giving the king the business. Same dude, few days later, found tossed off the city heights or ripped limb from limb ‘under mysterious circumstances’. Is that your mental image, too? This does not sound like a highly sought-after gig, my people.  

In actuality, the word means something less spectacular, and more applicable to our lives today. A prophet is one who speaks a fresh word from God for the world. You see my meaning? We could all be called to be prophets, listening to the guidance of God as we share a fresh message of hope to the world. We could be the ones called to envision and embody the reign of Christ in the world. We could be the ones called to speak hope to despair. Strength to fear. Love to apathy. Welcome to mistrust. Plenty to scarcity.  Sound daunting? It does to me, too. But our help and courage comes from our close relatedness to Jesus and his message. Prophets. I am, and you are. All of us are called. And brothers and sisters, we have these voices for a reason.

...lost...and home.

Words of life, words of hope,

give us strength, help us cope;

in this world where’er we roam

God’s ancient words will guide us home.

---Lynn DeShazo, 2001

Have you ever gotten lost? Turned around? So worn out you lost track of the path ahead of you and stumbled into the high grass off the side of the trail? Have you ever looked around for a sign, or down at a map, or up at the stars, and wondered, “Where in the world am I?” Have you ever sat there, where you found yourself---lost---and asked yourself, the open road, no one in particular, “How in the world did I get to here?”

Friends, I am the queen of getting lost, but not just in a literal way. I cannot count the times I’ve gotten lost behind a guitar, or in the pages of a book, or in front of a screen of some sort. I’ve been lost at the bottom of a mountain of to-do's, and in a deep well of lonesomeness; and lost in frustration with the inadequacies of this broken world, and inadequacies of my own. How about you? Where do you get lost?

What hopeful, life-giving words, then, what a promise---that ancient words, God-inspired and preserved for us in Scripture, stand as a beacon in our lostness, in our turn-aroundness, in our discouragement and weakness. I hear some speaking to me now:

            In this world you will have trouble, but fear not…I have overcome the world.

            The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

            I have loved you with an everlasting love.

            You are mine. You are precious in my sight.

These are the words that guide me home. Every time…every time.

...like a mother

Like a mother with her children You will comfort us each day,

giving guidance on our journey, as we seek to find our way.

When we walk through fiery trials, You will help us take a stand;

when we pass through troubled waters, You hold out Your tender hand.

---Jann Aldredge-Clanton, 2000

Motherhood is often a balancing act. When to insist on vegetables first at dinner, when to sneak a little dessert in? When to stretch that last bedtime story to two (or three, or…)? When to let the baby cry it out, when to gather her up in your arms and tuck her in beside you? When shorts pants and knickers, when blue jeans and khakis? When to protect, when to challenge? When to comfort, when to brush off? When to support, when to caution? When to hold on, when to let go?

The same could be said of fatherhood, I’m sure (don’t know, never been a father). The thing is, this holy dance of parenthood is a weaving, the weft and warp that colors the character of our children. And God, in whose image we are created, and our pattern in all things, models for us both the compassion and the courage of a mother or a father for us.

For God offers both comfort and guidance, each in appropriate measure and at appropriate time. And when flood waters or trial fires rise around us, God’s hand is reaching out --- ahead of us, to rescue us; or at our backs, to urge us on to our own brave action. Because, in our best moments, that’s what mothers, and fathers, do.

We can hear You gently saying, “Do not worry, do not fear;

for I’ll always go beside you; every moment I am near.”