My Many Mothers
Shortly after my mother died, a woman from my church said sweetly, “You can be my daughter. I would be honoured.” Those were not idle words. Even now, after 11 years, Ann calls me regularly just to see how I’m getting along. When I share plans for a trip to see my daughters, she asks when I want to travel. During her next call, bingo! She proudly announces my low-cost itinerary, then tells me that she’s booked the ticket on her credit card and I can pay her back later. Just as my mum would do if she were still here.
spiritual mum
I met my spiritual mum, Fernand, in the lunch line at a women’s retreat where she and her 10-year-old granddaughter stood just ahead of me. The precocious girl struck up a conversation with me about my dreadlocks, and we’ve been friends ever since. Fernand constantly prays for my ministries and encourages me to press on. Our lives intertwine like deep roots in a forest. We nurture each other through psalms, hymns, spiritual sayings and prayer.
While sharing a room on a trip to facilitate a women’s ministries weekend, we both awoke in the middle of the night. Unable to sleep, we spent the rest of the night praying and singing together. My own mother would have done no less.
she’s able
“You can hang!*” was the accolade I gave to Mary, my newest mum, a retired Bible instructor and recent widow. This sage and seasoned mother relocated to live just eight kilometres from my home. She has helped me to stuff packets, sort name tags, and handle retreat registration. Mothers always have an extra pair of hands, you know. No doubt God placed Mary right where I needed a surrogate mother to be—close enough to visit, kind enough to listen, and loving enough to care.
All my adopted mothers have daughters of their own, yet they have room in their hearts for me. They don’t know or remember my birthday, and I’m not a regular guest for meals. But I’ve enjoyed calling them “Mum,” nonetheless, and the relationships have wonderful possibilities because we have no dysfunctional baggage or family skeletons. I listen and learn from them.
she mentors me
On a breezy afternoon I spent several hours with one other mum in my life. She has no biological children. She may not even be old enough to be my mother. Yet since the day that Maggie and I met she’s been “Mrs Barnabas,” my encourager. She’s mentored me with books and tapes, even treated me to a Joyce Meyer seminar. As we sat together in her home viewing a T D Jakes video, “God’s Leading Lady,” I realised that Maggie is my personal growth mentor. She touches my life in definite ways that bring me up a little higher on the development scale.
When my mother died in 1991, my world crashed down around me. It was just three years after I’d graduated from college, and at 38, I was on the verge of discovering what I was meant to be. I was an adult student and single parent, and my mother was a source of tremendous support and encouragement during those four challenging years. She truly was instrumental in my getting a bachelor’s degree.
Still traumatised by her death when my estranged father died two years later, I felt as though salt had been poured into an open wound. But the grace of God tenderly ministered to my soul through the women who accepted the call to mother me.
There are many “orphans” in our communities. You may in a position to mother one or more of them. Here are some tips to get you started:
- Embrace the opportunity to reach out to a woman or family in your community, church or other social group who may need to be mothered by someone just like you.
- Don’t think that you must meet every one of the individual’s needs. Each of my “mothers” meets a specific need for me. Do your best, and God will do the rest.
- Allow yourself time to grow into the ministry of mothering. Start off with light conversation and even small gifts that say, “Someone loves you.”
- Adults are not necessarily looking for advice. Be a good listener, and be willing to pray with and for your adoptee, if appropriate.
Your own children may see your adoptee as a threat unless you balance your time and energy to include everyone under your motherly influence.
Be genuine and sincere about your concern for your adoptee.
*“You can hang!” is a compliment. It means “You are competent. You can hold your own!”
Sali Butler, a mother of adult twins, is the founder of Alabaster Box Women’s Conference, a ministry that offers discipleship training to women through a variety of ways. Although Sali is single, she often coaches married friends on how to make romantic memories despite their busy lives.
Reprinted, with permission, from Women of Spirit.
what Mother’s Day really means
We all have a mother. Some of our mothers are living, others have passed away. It is little wonder that the world over, we celebrate Mother’s Day.
Its origins seem as diverse as the country you were born in, but one thing remains constant, the flowers! Carnations, to be exact, from China, to Canada, the UK and Australia, are the symbol of Mother’s Day. But where did the idea of the carnation being the symbol of Mother’s Day arise?
Most agree it came from American Anna Jarvis. She began with a small group of friends in her home in 1907, announcing she wanted a day each year set aside to honour mothers.
She lobbied, and the idea took hold. In America and across the world, she instigated the Mother’s Day we know today. Anna began a custom of wearing the carnation—pink or coloured if your mother is living and white if your mother had died. The flowers were an inexpensive symbol of the love your mother gave you and the love and respect you felt in return, for the woman who loved you before you took your first breath.
However, by the time Anna Jarvis died, she was deeply saddened at the commercialism of Mother’s Day—expensive gifts, cards and bunches of flowers—saying, "I wanted a day of sentiment, not profit!"
So in the original spirit and design of Mother’s Day this year, wear a flower, whether a mother or otherwise, for all of us have been touched by the woman who gave us life. Take a moment to reflect upon what makes or made her so special to you, and pin on that white or coloured flower with pride!—Kate Jones
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