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our mothers, ourselves: part 2

We’ve talked about three of the four vital roles a mother plays in her children’s lives: nurturer, protector, and preparer. Remember now—we are exploring this not in order to critique our own mothering at this time, but in order to understand why we have become the women we are, and more importantly to find those changes we have longed for over the years. Before we move on, I’d like to say a bit more about mother as Preparer, especially when it comes to preparing her daughter for womanhood. Very few of us had the kind of preparation God intended us to have so that we might grow up into confident, resilient, loving women. So let me offer a picture here through what one of my friends offered her daughter.

welcoming Kacey into womanhood

Becky is a woman I have come to love and respect. When her daughter Kacey began to mature, Becky and her husband, Jim, started to prepare Kacey for all that was coming with intention. I’ll let Becky tell the story in her own words:1

We used the American Girls book entitled The Care and Keeping of You to begin the dialogue of what she could expect. We talked about her beauty in God’s eyes, that she is a masterpiece created by our God. We went to a fun restaurant where we ordered special drinks in a mug, but I brought a Styrofoam cup, too. We talked about how she is not “throw away” like Styrofoam, or serviceable like a mug; then I pulled out fine china and said she is like “fine china,” priceless, hand painted, and carefully cared for. We shopped for her first bras and made that very special!

On the next outing, we talked about what she likes about her body and what she doesn’t … that was great dialogue. One week we had pedicures and talked about the source of true beauty, using principles from Captivating to give her Jesus’s true perspective. Lastly, we talked about beginning her monthly cycle, and I gave her a little bag with all the things she would need, just in case. The actual day she began her monthly cycle, we made into a very special event with a date out to ice cream.

I just have to pause for a moment and say I know, I know—let the tears come. For all that you wished you had and did not receive. I share Kacey’s story not only to help you know what you were meant to have, but also to awaken your heart to the healing Jesus longs for you.

Throughout these couple of years, Jim began to date Kacey; the big event every year was taking her to the Daddy-Daughter dance held here locally. This past spring, at age fourteen, was the last dance they got to attend, and how perfect to have had her “calling forth” ceremony the same year, in this year of transition. Jim made this last dance very special by taking her shopping himself to find the “perfect” dress and accessories.

the calling forth ceremony

We prayed about what we were going to do for her Calling Forth ceremony. First of all, we kept it a complete surprise and also included family and friends who have played a key role in Kacey’s life. Also, Jim had taken her shopping again one night, getting her a new dress (white) but not saying what it was for. As the evening began and after dedicating it to God in prayer, we told Kacey we were calling her out to be who God said she is.

Several weeks before this ceremony, Jim and I had asked her to write a paper, with no parameters, about what it means to be a Christian woman. We had her read to everyone what she had written; I believe this gave her ownership in all we were doing in her life.

Next, we showed the scene from the Fellowship of the Ring where Arwen rides with Frodo to the river. With her love of horses and her striking resemblance to Arwen, it really impacted Kacey’s heart. Then our two boys, ages nine and seventeen, brought in Arwen’s sword. Each of the boys spoke over Kacey and then handed me the sword. After them, I spoke over her life and what I see in her, and called her out as Arwen, as a warrior princess. We then passed the sword around, allowing each person to speak from their heart over Kacey’s life. Lastly, the sword came to her dad, who then, after speaking, presented her with the sword.

We then explained that “Butterfly Kisses” was the song we played when she was dedicated to God as an infant, and began to play that song; about halfway through Jim asked her to dance. There was not a dry eye in the room. Then Jim took her on his lap and spoke about keeping herself pure; he pulled out a “promise ring” we had found especially for this evening. It has her birthstone in the middle, being supported or held up by my birthstone and Jim’s. Inside the band of the ring it says “forever my daughter.”

Then all gathered around Kacey, laying hands on her and anointing her for this next part of her life and sealing in her heart all that had been spoken. Some very dear friends presented her with a charm bracelet, where they each picked out a charm to give Kacey. The bracelet is incredibly meaningful to her. Throughout the whole evening a friend wrote down what each person said in a beautiful keepsake journal. Kacey goes back and reads it all the time and has added to it.

We have not done this parenting thing perfectly, but I believe that God has led us to give Kacey the tools, the affirmation of who she is in him, and the encouragement to live differently in a time that can be very hard for a teenage young woman. Just the other night Jim and I sat and held her together and prayed over her, building on all that we did in the Calling Forth ceremony.

I share this not because Becky and Jim did it all right, nor to suggest that this is the only model to follow. I share this because it is a beautiful picture of the love and intentionality you were meant to experience, the preparation you were supposed to receive as a young woman. Come for us, Jesus. Come where we did not know any such thing. Come for our hearts. We are going to pray a healing prayer at the end of this chapter, but let me first cover the fourth primary role a mother plays.

mother as initiator

We raise our children to leave us. It is perhaps the hardest and most beautiful truth of motherhood.

I dropped my sons Sam and Blaine off at the airport yesterday after far too short of a Thanksgiving break. Though we’ve said our good-byes curbside before, it remains painful. It is one of the sorrows of being a mother that we raise our children to leave us. And leave us is exactly what they need to do. Difficult as it is, mothers are supposed to bless and even celebrate their daughters and sons leaving home and moving into the next stage of their lives.

This involves separating from our children, cutting the apron strings and the invisible umbilical cord and letting them go—trusting they have the capacity to live their lives without our constant involvement. It involves providing, particularly in the teenage years and early adulthood, the sense that the mother understands her daughter has the right to become the full expression of her own unique self. And she blesses and encourages that. We need to have been let go of, and when the time comes, to let go of our own children as well. It is probably the hardest thing for a mother to do.

Some call this initiation. Full initiation into womanhood. When it does not occur, there is a sense of guilt in the adult child. The grown daughter feels responsible for the happiness and well-being of her mother. Often the mother, unable to let go, encourages this. Guilt is a weapon used by many a mother to manipulate her adult child. For a mother to be effective in providing initiation, she must have somehow received it herself.

How did your mother do with this most difficult of tasks?

The Disney movie Tangled presents a picture of a mother who is not blessing her daughter’s life or letting her separate. The wicked woman (who is not actually her mother but pretending to be) uses fear to manipulate her daughter in order to keep what she wants: control over her daughter’s life. She is a mother figure who refuses to let go. Though the film is fictional, the themes portrayed are many women’s reality.

I have a dear friend whose mother has placed enormous demands on her life. Janie’s mother has a massive spirit of entitlement and wields the weapon of guilt with skill. She acts as if she holds the keys to the front door of her grown daughter’s home, not to mention Janie’s life and heart, and that she has the right to walk into any of those realms at any moment she wishes. They talk on the phone at least once a day but usually more. My friend wants to honor her mother as God wants her to do but has wrongly believed that means her mother does have a right to her life. Her mother has held Janie hostage by fear and intimidation, and my friend has allowed her mother to continue to control her in countless ways. Her fear of being reproached by her mother, which she can’t avoid, has led her to make choices that have compromised her own children’s well-being and her relationship with her husband. Janie has not followed the biblical mandate to leave and cleave. She has put her relationship with her mother above her relationship with her husband (to her mother’s delight). My precious friend sees it now and sorrows over it. But her mother is not going to change. It will be up to Janie to enforce the rightful boundaries over and around her life. (More on this in a coming chapter.)

Mothers do not have a right to their adult children’s lives. They don’t have the right to their children’s emotional lives. Mothers need to be invited in. But first, mothers have to let go.

There is a scene near the end of the book and movie The Help that I love. Skeeter’s mother—who has made all the classic mistakes of withholding her approval of her daughter, wanting her daughter to be just like her and to live the same kind of life that she herself has lived—finally and fully blesses her daughter. Perhaps for the first time, Momma has begun to see the woman her daughter has become and speaks life to her: “I have never been more proud of you.” Looking straight into her daughter’s eyes, her love, recognition, and release free Skeeter to continue on her own journey. It is beautiful.

Mothering well is a prayerful art.

—Lori McConnell, Restoring Hope in a Woman’s Heart

healing

In her DVD Mother-Daughter Wisdom, Christiane Northrup described what we receive from our mothers as being similar to being dealt a hand of cards. What we received is formative and foundational, but this “hand” is not our destiny. If you didn’t get dealt a great hand, say, or your cards are torn or bloody, folded or lousy or even missing, this is where the healing presence of Jesus Christ can come in and wash your cards clean. He gives you the cards he intended for you to have. He restores. He has established our destiny, which is to have him formed in us. He is our inheritance, and we must bring him our hearts, our wounds, all that we were meant to have as girls growing up. We bring him the hand we were dealt and ask for his healing. His name is Faithful and True. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He wants to heal us! Jesus is the one who has the right to speak into our lives with authority and power. He has the power to bless who we are and who we are becoming. We need to hear from him.

In order to receive the healing that God has for us regarding our mother wounds, we need to know what we need healing from and for. Specifically. We need to remember what happened in the story of our lives and invite the healing presence of Jesus there. For healing to come, we actually have to go back and remember and even access the emotion of the wound; Jesus helps us to do that.

The power of the memory to make the past present to us is extraordinary. The reason for this is that Jesus, the Infinite One who is outside time and to whom all times are present, enters into what for us is a past occurrence.

—Leanne Payne, Crisis in Masculinity

The events themselves do not change, but in the light of Jesus’s love and presence, we are enabled to view and experience them differently. The sting of death is removed, the pain of the memory is released to Jesus, and healing comes. God will actually reframe our history and memories to us as he heals us. As God nurtures, protects, prepares, and initiates us, he restores us to the truth of who we are and the reality of the life we are living and meant to live. We can be satisfied. We are loved, wanted, seen, delighted in, provided for, cherished, chosen, known, and planned on. We are set apart, believed in, invited, valued, of immeasurable worth, and blessed.

Now it’s time to pray. It would be helpful if you could get someplace quiet and private where you won’t be interrupted for a bit. If you can’t now, then wait until you can. Let’s invite Jesus to come and reveal to us where he would love to bring us more healing.

But first there are some words that we may need to hear from our own mom that she may never be able to speak. It may be beyond her emotional or spiritual capacity, or she may have already died. Either way, I want to say to you, on your mother’s behalf:

Sweetheart, I am so sorry. I am so sorry for having failed you in every way I have. I need your forgiveness. Please forgive me. Let God love you in the places that I didn’t or couldn’t as I should have. Forgive me. You deserved more.

Now to prayer. Take your time through this.

Holy Trinity, I invoke your healing presence now. Come and meet me here and now. I sanctify my memories and my imagination to you, God. I ask you to come and to reveal where I need healing, Jesus, and I ask you to heal me.

Where do you want to come, God? Where do I need you to come? Is it while I was in the womb? Is it as a child, a little girl, a young woman? Is it to every stage of my life?

Come, Jesus. I ask you to come for me and to heal me in the deep places and unseen realms of my heart. I need you. Come with your light and your love, come with your tender, strong, and merciful Presence and fill me here.

In the Name of Jesus, I bless my conception. God, you planned on me before the earth was made. I bless my development in my mother’s womb. God, you were there. Come now beyond the bounds of time and minister to me, your precious one, as I was being formed in my inmost being, and speak your love and delight over me. I confess to you, God, and proclaim the truth that I have all I need. I am fully satisfied in you, Jesus, and I always will be. I am wanted, delighted in, and of immeasurable worth. You planned on me. You wanted me, and you still want me. Like a weaned child within me, my soul is satisfied in you, God.

I break off any and all curses assigned to me, including all judgments against me passed on from my generational line. I am adopted into your family. The very blood of Jesus has purchased me, and I belong to you forever as your daughter. I claim this right here, in the womb.

Together with you, Jesus, I bless my delivery. Come into that time and space, dear Jesus. Come into any and all trauma or fear that I may have experienced in that. I break off all assignments of fear or death that may have entered in through a traumatic birth in the Name of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, my healer, come into my need for nurture; come into the places that needed nurture from my mother. Show me where healing is needed here.

As you linger through this prayer, Jesus will show you memories and events and bring back feelings that you had. Were you satisfied as a child? Were your basic needs—for food, safety, and healthy touch—met? Did you receive the attention you needed? Was the delight bestowed on you that you were meant to have? Were you celebrated simply because you existed as yourself? Linger, and invite Jesus here. As he reveals things to you, invite him in, ask him to heal. Is forgiveness needed here? Forgive. Are tears needed here? Allow those tears to come, but invite Jesus into those tears as you do. Ask his healing. Ask him to nurture you in this very place. Linger, and then continue with the prayer.

Jesus, my healer, come into my need for protection; come into the places that needed protection offered to me by my mother. Show me where healing is needed here.

A mother protects. She is supposed to know what is going on in her child’s life. To notice. To be aware. To intervene. Did your mother notice? Did she intervene? Invite Jesus here.

Jesus, my healer, come into my need for preparation; come into the places that needed preparation from my mother. Show me where healing is needed here.

A mother encourages her daughter toward independence and self-confidence. As a child were you accepted? Were you seen? Celebrated? Were you encouraged to pursue your interests? To try? Did you receive attention and delight? Do you remember receiving the encouragement to be you? To become your unique self? Were you welcomed into the realm of womanhood? Were you initiated into the feminine world with approval and a sense of belonging? Invite Jesus here.

Finally, Father God, in this moment I also repent of any and all hatred of women that has taken root in my heart. Hatred of women is hatred of myself and not from you. I choose to love women, and I embrace my own womanhood. I thank you that I am a woman! I bless my femininity! I thank you for my life, and I choose life. I give my life fully to you now, Jesus, and I invite you to have your way in me. I love you, Jesus. Thank you for coming for me; keep coming for me. I pray all of this in your glorious and beautiful Name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Okay. That was good. It really was. Whether you felt anything or not. It was good. Dear hearts, we can be satisfied. God put us in a world where we have him and we have one another. A woman once told me that there are all kinds of ways God brings daughters into our lives, and I have found that to be true. Well, it is also true that there are all kinds of ways God brings us mothers, too. Spiritual mothers. Friends. Counselors. Christ himself. Let God continue to mother you, to heal you. Stay with this. Continue to pray and press in toward the more that God has for you.

And know that, whether she ever conveyed it to you or not, you were a gift to your mother’s heart of the grandest design. Every mother learns more from her children than she ever teaches them.

a lullaby of delight

John and I were visiting friends in Tucson recently, escaping the freezing temperatures of a Colorado winter for a brief respite to the warmth of the sun and the warmth of a welcome. After a restful day exploring the wonder of the desert, we gathered together for evening prayer. A phrase of one friend’s prayer caught my imagination: “Father, sing your lullaby of delight over us.”

As many mothers do, I used to make up songs for my children, singing lullabies softly to coax my young sons to sleep. Never remembering the correct words, I made them up as I went along, inserting their names often. I loved it. Turns out, they loved it too.

As I laid me down to sleep that night in Tucson, I asked God what his lullaby of delight over me sounded like. My mind immediately flashed to holy moments from earlier in the day: sitting alone in the shade, listening to the wind blow through the leaves of the eucalyptus trees towering above me, the sound like water, like the movement of life. I remembered the sound of the red-tailed hawks crying and calling to each other as they circled above their nearby nest. The song of quails and mourning doves and birds I didn’t recognize added their melodies—a living symphony. Then all was quiet again save for the movement of leaves as another rolling breeze sang its way through the swaying trees.

A holy song. A lullaby of delight. Sung over me. Singing over you.

note

1. Becky, communication with the author. Used with permission.