how to be a good mama

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
-1 Corinthians 13 (the Message)

I had a friend, years ago, who spoke of her mama like most people talk about historic figures or famous people. She loved her, was loyal to her, held her in reverence, and yet was also able to laugh about her mama’s eccentricities. She wasn’t alone in her devotion, her brothers felt the same way about their mom.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, my friend came to town on business and we had dinner.

At some point in the conversation, the question that had been burning a hole inside me for years tumbled out of my mouth.

“How did your mama do it? What did she do to become the mother that she is to you?”

My friend looked at me like I had asked her to explain how to blink the correct number of times in the day.

“She just loved us more than she loved herself. She never stopped giving to, caring for, or believing in us,” she stated logically.

I think about that conversation at least once a week.

Parenting is hard. The emotional strain is difficult. The physical toll is great. It can be easy to put your life in cruise control and try to coast through the day, or the week, or the year.

But then I think of my friend and her mom. I remember how much I want that kind of depth of relationship with my children.

So I let the laundry sit a few hours. I put my phone away while we play a game or sit and read together. I grab one of my children as they pass by and just hold them for a moment, whispering love into their ears.

I listen to their silly stories, paper-thin dreams, and incorrect hypotheses. I share my own heart’s thoughts with them, and guide them along the road of empathy in our relationship.

I want my face and my voice and my presence to wind itself through their days. Not so that I can control them, not to try to scare them; no, I want to mother in such a way that they can feel my loving hand holding theirs as they walk along life’s path.

Loving with all my heart and all my strength is the only way I know to be a good mama. A million little things I do, words I say, and ways I show them all add up to a love by which they will define the meaning of life.

You get what you give in love. Like all good mamas I know, loving my children has also given great meaning to my own life. As my children have grown and begun to reach out their hearts to me, the joy I feel is inexpressible.

I suspect my friend’s mama could have told me all of that. But I doubt I would have really understood until I lived it myself.

Love is best learned by living it out.