What The Love Of My Mother Has Taught Me About Love In General
What I have realised from my relationship with my mother is that love is a very incredible thing and so often misunderstood. But through my mum I came to understand it. Because love isn't what we give to get, love is what we give so that another is comfortable to also give it - whether or not they decide to reciprocate. There have been times where I have been a real shocker of a child. Entirely selfish, have broken her heart on numerous occasions, and have only truly in recent years begun to understand what a mother-daughter relationship truly means. Having come to see it as a gift of God, I treasure it more. I no longer chuck up a stink when we disagree - I think instead "I can't wait for us to talk properly and seek to understand, and to mend this little rift." I have learnt that love is never coerced, or forced, or traded, or bribed. It is persuaded through its pure form. And that form is seen in the bond between mother and child.
Love isn't something that gets measured out with pieces of your heart. When we say "I love someone with my whole heart" it is either true - that our whole heart is involved in loving that person, or we are lying, because the heart cannot be split into segments for different people. Because love takes the whole heart and yet it can be shared with many others. It is a very weird thing in our world unlike the sharing of food, or of finances. Love is an unending currency but it needn't be traded. It is not used to buy things. It is used to heal and comfort and to express joy and peace. In its ethereal yet very real existence, it cannot be dumbed down to a physical and finite resource.
So when I tell my mum I love her, I am at that same moment realising my love for her and her love for me. And that perpetual, ongoing proclamation steers us both towards love for each other and others. Love has this unavoidable ripple effect, and I enjoy watching its tide race towards its next "victim". I love seeing the way in which it naturally laps up against people, slowly eroding their hardened hearts, or washing away the debris of heart ache and disappointment.
And so this Mothers Day, I would like to thank God for giving me an image of what it is to be loved by Him through the enigmatic and generous person that is my mother. Most of us will have a mother that we say "is the best mum in the world" - and that's how it's meant to be - because in all of this we're meant to see a great and unfailing love from parent to child.
Despite knowing the difficulty of raising children in a tumultuous world, where there would be endless times of self-sacrifice (nappies full to the brim with fresh poo, months spent in hospitals in Sydney, dealing with this dirty habit I had in primary school of leaving food to get squished in my bag, experiencing my heartache firsthand, and that time I was in a real foul mood on our first trip to Vanuatu of which there is photo evidence and I rocked a killer grump face), my mum knew that she loved the idea of having me and my brother so much that she was willing to go through it all to create something of her very own - and yet we would be unique little mini-Judys running amok and loving others a-plenty.
Love is facing the fear of uncertainty surrounding its reciprocation and its hard times and saying "oh but you are worth it to me."
My mother was made in the image of God, and I, through her, was too made in His image. And that alone tells me that I am worth it all to both Him and her, and likewise she is worth it all to me - and to Him.
