Before my son left for college, I wrote him a 7 page letter on all the things I wish I could have taught him about God before he left. The first thing I wrote is the most simple but profound aspect of God –
“God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
For you, I have decided to take each component of my letter and ask, “What would Mother Mary do?”
What would Mother Mary do to nurture the light within her son Jesus to support him in becoming all that God intended him to be?
She would have taught Jesus that he was created out of pure love and therefore every fiber of his body, mind and spirit is love. Love is life giving! He was love from the beginning, is love now, and shall ever be love.
Because Jesus was created from love and is love, while he was growing up, Mary would need to remind him that he can know for certain that when he is feeling emotions that are aligned with love, he is aligned with God. When he is feeling emotions that take away his life force energy rather than create it as love does, it is an indication that he needs to become realigned with who he really is.
Mother Mary would allow him the freedom to feel anger, sadness and hurt but she would ask, “Do you like feeling this way? Does this feel like heaven? If not, let’s think about this differently so we can change the direction this moment is going.”
Mother Mary would show him how much better it felt to let those emotions go and find goodness and beauty in people, places and things. Mother Mary would help him to notice and acknowledge the love God put in all of God’s creations. Mother Mary would guide Jesus back to love by reminding him of his personal power to live on earth as it is in heaven. She would guide him back through her own love, joy and appreciation of him.
Mother Mary knew Jesus was all knowing, all powerful, pure love even as an infant. Her love for him was not conditional on his actions, his intelligence, his desires nor his abilities. She loved him for all that he was and marveled at all he could become.
It sounds so simple yet it feels so hard to do with our own children. This is especially true when your kiddo is throwing a temper tantrum or is certain you are a lunatic with intentions to harm them when you are encouraging them to just try their veggies.
And it’s even harder when you judge your own actions as to whether you are a good mother or not by what you hope your children will become or who you think they should be – those are all conditions.
Loving someone without conditions means no matter what they do, think, say, feel or believe, you find beauty and goodness within them that you can appreciate and find value in.
It is difficult to judge actions and behaviors of others as ones you would not desire in your life experience without condemning or shaming or trying to change them by force. But love is not fear, love is not deceit, love is not violent, love does not seek it’s own interests, love is not focused on fault. “Love is patient, love is kind….It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4, 7-8)
It is difficult to recognize when we feel anger, shame or guilt we are misaligned with God’s intentions are that we all live eternally through life giving feelings you receive with love, joy, peace and contentment.
In order to teach my children that God is love, I need to be what God created me to be – love. I need to marvel at the fact that my children were created from the same love of God that created Christ. Love is an intricate part of every fiber of my children’s being – love is their natural state. When we love someone, we get a glimpse of what God feels when he looks at all of his creations.
The mystery of love is we can only love others to the extent we love ourselves. I need to be mindful of how I treat myself in the words or thoughts or feelings I have about any part of me. Because we are all one in the body of Christ, if there are aspects of myself that I deny love, deny the acceptance of beauty and goodness just as I am, then I am denying love to others who are just like me in those ways. And believe me, my kids are a lot like me! And although I am made unique, when I deny myself love, I am ultimately denying my neighbor love.
Remember we are all created from God’s love. Remember at the core of our being we are love. Remember that we are aligned with God’s will for us when we are looking for the beauty in what is.
Our job as mothers, just like Mary’s, is to make sure we maintain our own connection with God, that our own thoughts, feelings and actions are aligned to God’s will and that our own personal power is doing everything we can to create heaven on earth.
I believe all of our children are here to teach us more than we are meant to teach them! They are greater extensions of ourselves. Just as Jesus was a greater extension of his mother, he taught us that forgiveness of even the worst atrocities are what will bring us to eternal life. As mothers, that we cannot do our jobs well without forgiving and letting go of all the reasons to feel feelings that take away our life force energy. This includes worry, doubt and fear. We must return to love through forgiveness.
Our job as mothers is not to decide who our children will become. Nor is it to determine their greatest strengths – God has given them many and they can decide what they love most about themselves. Nor is our job as mothers to provide them help for every conceivable short coming or opportunity – only the ones they desire. Our job is to love them – unconditionally.
God is love. Love is life giving. Love is the source of all creation. Love is our destiny.
Let us pray –
May each of us as earthly mothers find heavenly guidance from Mother Mary and the angels to develop a connection to God so strong and pure and true that God’s love flows to us and through us to fill the hearts of our children with a faith in God’s goodness, beauty and love.
May we be filled with God’s grace to accept the love of Christ within our own hearts and to love our children as we would love Christ.
May our alignment guide our children to live on earth as it is in heaven with love.