As Mother's Day approaches, I've been contemplating the mothers in my life and my role as a mother.
I'm grateful for my mother who nurtured creativity and independence and worked hard to provide a home for my brothers and me; for my grandmother, aunts, Granny and other ladies who invested in my life. I'm grateful for daughters who are fantastic mothers to their children and to each of them for helping to nurture their younger brothers.
Over the past 31 years, I've had the privilege of being a mother. (Yes, it's a privilege, not a burden.) It has been glorious, frustrating, demanding, blessing, good, bad and everything in between. I've had success and failure. I've felt pleased and despairing discouragement. And, it's not over. It's never over.
Even if one is no longer "mothering" with the day-to-day demands of feeding, clothing, providing a home, your children are part of you and you're constantly praying for them and thinking of ways to bless them.
With two sons still at home (and under adult age), I'm still mothering, although some of my grown children would say I still "mother" despite my grandiose attempts to keep my mouth shut and not interfere in adult children's lives. But, in addition to mothering privileges and responsibilities, I'm grand-mothering, too.
I was blessed with a very involved and loving grandmother. As the only granddaughter for 22 years (I had younger brothers and boy cousins), I was privileged to have a special relationship with my grandmother. When I was 22, my aunt had a daughter, so the two of us girls were "book-end" granddaughters with four boys in between.
Mothering used as a verb has traditionally been synonymous with nurture, care, kindness, feeding, soothing, discipling, counseling, correcting.
Twenty-five years ago, with four young daughters and another on the way, I often felt overwhelmed and incompetent. I looked at ladies 15 to 20 years older with teen-age and grown children and thought they had it all together. They told me they didn't, but I still thought they did.
Scripture has much to say about mothers and about the characteristics of mothers. In Isaiah, God uses the analogy of a nursing mother to describe himself.
"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you." Isaiah 49:15
"As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you...." Isaiah 66:13
And, the Apostle Paul wrote: "But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us." 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8
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Editor's note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County, chosen the best small weekly newspaper in Arkansas for five of the past six years. A native of Louisiana, she moved to northwest Arkansas in 1980 to work for the Benton County Daily Record. She has nine children, four sons-in-law, seven grandsons, two granddaughters and another grandchild due in December. The opinions expressed are those of the author. She can be reached at [email protected].
Editorial on 05/04/2016