As You Love

We celebrated Mother’s Day a few days ago, and for me it was one of the best ones yet.  This is significant, because I have a rocky history with this holiday.   It started with my first Mother’s Day, when we were both new parents and new puppy parents as well. Being responsible dog owners we had our puppy go through obedience training, which was quite suited to her.  We entered her into a dog show, which happened to be scheduled on – you guessed it, Mother’s Day weekend.  Not only did we find ourselves trying to make time for both of our mothers on this important day, but now the dog was getting in on it too. And she totally bombed her show! How’s that for gratitude?

Every year Mother’s Day would roll around, and every year I’d get some idea of what I wanted to do to celebrate it.  Nothing too big, sometimes a day at the park, sometimes brunch out.   But every year I bought into the hype surrounding the holiday – this is your day.  You should be spoiled and taken care of, and everything should be perfect for you.  Which of course, doesn’t happen.  Children don’t stop being children on Mother’s Day.  They won’t magically stop fighting or keep the house clean, or go happily where you’d like them to go just because it’s Mother’s Day.  Husbands won’t cease to have the demands that they have on their lives, simply because it’s Mother’s Day. And so it came to be that somehow, I always found myself feeling last.

Until one year, a little while back, something clicked for me.  I realized that since I started having babies, I stopped doing Mother’s Day right.  Before that I knew it was about honoring my mother, and I went to great lengths to do that.  I never thought about myself on that day, but did what I could to make it special for her.  When my husband and I started dating, we spent our time between both families for both of our mothers, because this is a day for them.  Once I had children, I did become a mother, but I didn’t stop being a daughter.  

I realized in that moment that the reason I always felt let down was because I was looking for my kids to do for me what they can’t do yet, and I had stopped putting my full focus on honoring the two mothers I have to the fullest, because I was so caught up in the kind of day I wanted for myself. From then on my plan for Mother’s Day became see my mothers. Both ask me each year what I want to do, both put me first on a day that is meant for them as well.  I spent a happy day this year running to both sides of town, soaking up the day in the best possible way with the two families I adore, and it filled my heart to the brim.  This is how I want to do Mother’s Day from now on, because life is so much sweeter when we look to others first.

“The law of life is loving, not being compensated. We suffer when we don’t receive anything in return, but this fact does not destroy companionship nor unity. Everything is born within us. Everything!”

(Luigi Giussani)

I read this quote this morning and it spoke directly to my heart.  There are so many situations where I am wounded, and which I approach with a selfish position of wanting something for myself.  What if I approach each of these in the same way I have begun (after many years of messing it up) to approach Mothers Day?  What if I went into each relationship not looking for what I can receive, but simply loving the other?

I thought of my children and the way I relate to them.  When I am busy and trying to get a million things done so I can get out the door, and someone is putting on the brakes and not applying themselves.  Or when I am appalled at the constant mess of everything they come in contact with – our living spaces, our van, our yard.  When I am frustrated at the way they treat one another, and their lack of empathy and compassion.  When they just won’t listen. All of these circumstances elicit anger in me, and too often I find myself reacting in a split second, rather than seeing the big picture.

Discipline is important, to not discipline is to leave a child severely impeded in life.  However, I think that when anger sets it, more often than not it can be because I feel that I am not being compensated in some way.  I am not being helped out, I am not being rewarded for all my hard work.  I am not being considered.  How often have I told my children that I feel last.  Why is this?  Because I had an expectation that I wouldn’t be.  In other words, I expected to be before them and their needs. The tension comes from this expectation that goes unmet for the vast majority of mothers, and which also flies in the face of what Jesus tells us,

“Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all." (Mark 9:35)

What if, in my dealings with my children, I always had before me their greater good instead of my own personal gain?  Instead of focussing on the impact to me when they don’t behave as they ought to (for surely it does impact me), what if the goal was to simply encourage them to be a better person because I want them to be happy?  Then I would not give up on the discipline, but perhaps I would have more compassion for those in my care.  It would become important to me that they work hard and do their best not simply because that’s a benefit to me (which it would be) but primarily because it is for their good.

Msgr. Giussani had great love for each person’s destiny, which is ultimate union with God.  When he met someone, he looked at them with great affection, not because he knew them (often times he didn’t know them at all) but because he knew what they were created for.  He desired with his whole being to lead everyone to that destiny, out of love for them.  This is the way I want to love every person around me.  This is the wonder with which I want to see my children, my family, my friends. Too long I have spent floundering in hurt feelings over what I think I deserve from people. Of counting the cost and feeling that I come up short. I want instead to love with reckless abandon.  To put the other first not just in times when it’s convenient for me, but always.  To love people as they are right now because I know who they are and what they were created for, and I want to do whatever I can to help them get there.

I want to love, Jesus, as you love.  Please continue to teach me.