Mom's Legacy of Love: A Mother's Day Reflection

Guest (Male): Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down? Trust fading? Conflict that never seems to resolve? There's still hope. Hope Restored Marriage Intensives by Focus on the Family help couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship.

Right now, through the Marriage Investment Initiative, Hope Restored is investing $1,000 toward marriage intensives. Visit hoperestored.com/marriage-investment.

Erin Smalley: Mother's Day is this weekend, and today we're going to give you some fun ways to celebrate. I'm Erin Smalley and with me is author Whitney Lowe. Whitney, when kids are little, they can do some of the cutest things to acknowledge Mother's Day. Tell us a cute story of how your kids have tried to celebrate you.

Whitney Lowe: My husband does a really good job. He tries to get them all excited about it and usually they are, but last year they made me this breakfast in bed. It was so sweet. It was so nice.

They brought it up to me pretty promptly, spilled it all over me and my bed with my nice sheets. Then the sweetest thing ever, my little daughter just settles in and she finishes off the rest of the plate. I'm like, "Tanner, I think maybe a little coaching in the breakfast-in-bed department," but great effort all around.

Erin Smalley: Great effort. That was very sweet. I just think back to those homemade cards where they just pour their sweet little hearts out. Just such a sweet day. Now that mine are older, sometimes I'll get an Instagram post or a text or a call and it just means the world.

Just the effort of them acknowledging, "Thank you for being my mom." There's nothing like it. We interviewed a few other women who shared some of the ways their kids have celebrated them on Mother's Day.

Guest (Female): One of the funnest ways my kids decided to celebrate me, they were probably five and six. They decided to clean the kitchen for me. The counters were great until they got to the floor. I had read a book to them that had a funny little twist to it, so they thought they would copy it.

What they did was they put sponges onto their feet, tied them, and used dish soap on the kitchen floor. They wet the sponges and started skating. The more they skated, the more bubbles happened. With dish soap, it went on and on.

What could I say? This was a labor of love, so I thanked them graciously, sent them outside, and it took weeks to get the soap off the floor as it went under the stove and under the counters. The more you wiped the floor, the more the bubbles showed up, but it was this love that just kept giving.

Guest (Female): My favorite Mother's Day memory is when I walked outside and found all my children around a wagon that they had just bought and filled with flowers. We spent the entire day out in the garden planting those flowers.

Guest (Female): One of my sweetest memories from Mother's Day are the precious cards that my kids would make me when they barely could write. They couldn't spell and in their drawings, I had to figure out what those drawings were, but those are the sweetest treasures I have from Mother's Day.

Guest (Female): There was this one day that my daughter and I were playing tennis. We had such a great time that we were laughing and crying at the same time. We were just having a great day.

We realized that it was Father's Day. I'm a single mother and my daughter said to me, "Mom, you're the best father that I've ever had too." It was just awesome. So that was my Mother's Day present too.

Guest (Female): For Mother's Day one year, I was celebrated by my sons with breakfast in bed. The breakfast was very interesting because he made me scrambled eggs with chili powder and cinnamon. He watched me eat every bite.

Erin Smalley: Such great stories from some of the staff moms here at Focus on the Family. Whitney, how can moms communicate some ways they want to be celebrated this year?

Whitney Lowe: I'm learning the power of specificity, particularly. Men just don't get as much training from the time that they're young in planning celebrations. Maybe that's an issue that we should fix, but at the end of the day, we're here now.

The way that I think we've avoided conflict and disappointment in the last few years especially is I honestly will say, "Can I have two hours and $100 to go to a thrift store to go shopping?" I just need a little time and I want to go do this thing and I'm going to get excited about it.

Or I say, "It would be really sweet if we could all go to dinner as a family." Just be specific and say it in a nice way, then let them run with it. Often there will still be some sweet surprises in there, but I think you cannot underestimate the power of just saying what sounds fun.

Erin Smalley: I so agree because for some reason I hear a lot that if I have to tell them, then it's not as special. I lay it out. I want a gift card from here, and this is what I want for dinner because then there's no guessing and no disappointment.

Greg is good with sliding in some unexpected surprise and it may not align exactly with what I would have wanted, but it's the thought that counts. Tell your husband or your kids exactly what you would like with specificity, as our dear friend Whitney has inserted. Years ago we featured a call-in show on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Many listeners shared meaningful ways they've celebrated their moms.

Guest (Female): I came from a very large family of six kids. We always had cousins living with us. My mom and dad were always bringing in teens that seemed to have problems and loving on them. They were just exceptional parents.

One story specifically that stands out is the way in which they were making us each feel very special and loved, sharing their time with us. My mom used to take us each to the side at night and pray with us. She always told me, I'm the oldest, that I was her favorite amongst all the others but that I could never tell my siblings.

It just tore me up. I just loved it. As we got older and became adults and we were at a sibling weekend which we all do, we got to talking one night. One of us shared that with the other and come to find out she did the same thing with each and every single one of us.

She used to tell us each individually at night, pray with each and every one of us, and told each and every one of us that we were her favorite. All the years growing up, all of us thought we were Mama's favorite. It was a great way to grow up.

Guest (Female): My mother, Susan Reeb, is the most courageous, beautiful, wise, and mother I know. As a baby, she was diagnosed with polio shortly after taking her first steps. After a lengthy stay at polio camp, she has embraced life with crutches and braces and a normal life. She never used her physical handicap as a disadvantage or excuse that she couldn't do anything.

Susan felt called to be a special education teacher after college. There, she was a mom to many poverty-stricken, neglected students. She had them when they walked in and often took them home to feed them a good, nutritious meal. Mom carried all three of us children using her crutches as legs and birthed us naturally.

To many, she was crazy to have kids as she couldn't even walk and carry us. How could she move us out of the crib? How could she lay us on the floor to change us? But like I said, no excuses. She introduced each of us to Jesus. Is there a better gift a mom can give? Even though Mom isn't the strongest physically, we are blessed to have a mother that is mentally and spiritually a bodybuilder.

Last summer, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through a mastectomy and eight hard rounds of chemo where she daily reminded everyone that God was in control and not the stress. Susan was in remission for just six short months when her world was upside down again.

Just six days ago, at a regular check-up, Mom was diagnosed with leukemia. Many would throw their hands up and be angry at God, but Mom just turned to remind her children God works everything for good. Her diagnosis is still unknown and scary. She's currently in isolation for the next month in the hospital, receiving constant chemo and facing a bone marrow transplant in the near future. There is not a stronger or more courageous mother in all the world.

Guest (Female): Soon after my father passed away, my mother's physician diagnosed her with Alzheimer's disease. When I heard the horrible news, I cried out, "Why, God? You know she is not a believer. How will she even be able to understand that now?" Mom soon came to live with my family. I bought her a large-print Bible and had her name engraved on it.

I read it to her every day, though I did not know if she could understand. I clung to my assurance that the Word of God is powerful and it can pierce hearts. After 16 months of caring for Mom, the Lord showed me that she was causing division in my home. As I struggled to make a decision, I tried to balance Mom's resistance to change with my concern about the welfare of my family whose lives were turned upside down.

After praying and seeking God's will, He led me to a Christian rest home. As the director prayed with me and I noticed Scripture displayed on the walls, my troubled mind was put at ease. The home was small and quaint, and the residents seemed like family. The building situated in a serene mountain setting was surrounded by a lush green pasture full of horses, adding to its appeal.

Mom had horses in her younger days and she enjoyed looking at them now. Mom quickly adjusted to her new surroundings and I was reassured by her contentment. Peace engulfed my home once again. About four months after Mom moved into her new home, my phone rang and a voice on the line said, "Do you want to tell her or should I?"

Another voice replied, "I want to tell her." Then I heard my mother say more clearly than I had heard her speak in the last 20 months, "I asked Jesus into my heart." At age 73, living in a rest home and afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, Mom had found salvation.

Guest (Male): It is my privilege to introduce you to the woman whom I call mother. Her name is Elsie. By blood, she is my maternal aunt and 50 years my elder. When I was 11, my birth mother was diagnosed with cancer. As quickly as she could, Aunt Elsie came from North Carolina to New York City to see about her sister and stood alongside us during a two-year period of long-suffering.

When Mom died, Auntie returned to North Carolina and her husband, who died some years later. My father then invited her to come live with us. I so needed a mommy and was excited to have her back. I'm truly blessed to have had the gift of two mothers: one who birthed me into this world and one whose love I remember well.

The Lord blessed Auntie Elsie with long life. At age 91, I invited her to come live with me in Atlanta where for four years I came home to her marvelous soul food. At age 95, a fall confined Auntie to a wheelchair and for the next three years I was able to walk alongside her when she most needed help, returning her act of kindness of 35 years ago.

Just this past September and four months shy of her 99th birthday, Auntie Elsie went to sleep in my arms, just as my mother did in hers. Neither of us ever had children, but life had it that we were able to be mother and daughter to and for each other at different seasons in our lives, proving that you don't have to give birth to be a mother.

So to the women who are vessels of life, happy Mother's Day. To the women who are mothers of the heart, blessed Mother's Day. And to all who are gone but never forgotten, thank you. To God be the glory for your Christlike examples of love. Again, happy Mother's Day.

Guest (Male): My mom has taught me, above all else, that in all things God can use them to fulfill His purpose. This became very clear to me when I consider how she led me to play the cello. In the fourth grade, I needed to choose an instrument to play for school.

My mother told me how my grandfather played the cello as a child and would have become a great musician had he not turned to medicine. With her encouragement, I chose the cello. For the next few years, I lugged that large piece of deadwood to and from school. It was not easy, and many times I just wanted to quit.

But my mom, in the way only a mom can do, encouraged me to persevere. She said God had a plan for me with the cello and through it, amazing things would happen. Besides, cello playing was in our blood. She was right, and through the cello, I received a scholarship to college and in the orchestra there, met my future wife.

Years later, I found my mother looking through an old batch of photos. She called me over to look at a black-and-white photo of small children in an orchestra. Smiling, she pointed to a serious-looking boy seated in the front row and said, "This is a picture of your grandfather with his little cello."

I looked at the picture and was overwhelmed with emotion. I turned to my mother with tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks as I told her, "Mom, that's a violin." We laughed so hard and long that I still can't tell that story today without smiling. Thanks, Mom.

Erin Smalley: I love that. Such thoughtful ways people have honored their moms. I think about my mom who passed away 19 years ago and I love thinking of her because I think of her frequently. So much of what she gave me is what is displayed in me today.

Her love for the holidays, making them special, I love making the holidays special. I still don't think I do it quite as good as she did. She baked bars, and of course, bars are something from the Midwest. She was from North Dakota, from a farm, and she would make pans of bars and we loved them.

It was such a gift to us and she could cook anything. She loved watching NBA, she loved animals, she was a bargain shopper before her time. So many things that she lived out I now see in me. It's just that legacy and I'm now seeing these things in my daughters, which is so fun. Whitney, this podcast has been about honoring moms and the legacy they leave. What's one of your favorite ways you've gotten to celebrate your mom?

Whitney Lowe: Well, for her 60th birthday—which just kidding, hasn't happened yet. She's actually 47. I know, maybe she's not going to like that I said that. Anyway, she turns 60 at some point, and we spoke to her friends—and obviously, this isn't for Mother's Day—but we kind of just had them write a letter or share an encouragement.

Getting to hear that made me so aware of exactly what you're saying, which is that even in the ways that we are not aware of, our moms shape even just our vision for our own future. As I'm at this stage of my life now in my 30s, I am accidentally copycatting everything that she has done. It's so crazy and I had no intention of doing that.

I say that because it's encouraged me even as a mom to not ignore those little things that you just don't know how they're going to impact the direction of your own kids' lives. It's been really cool to experience my mom's legacy in that way.

Erin Smalley: I love that. I so agree that our kids are always watching and these little things that we do, whether it is baking, whether it's hospitality, whether it's bargain shopping, it's amazing how our kids catch those things. They begin to live them out and really that is the gift of legacy, the legacy of their mother.

We have so many resources on our website including our free parenting assessment. It's free and it only takes a few minutes to complete. It'll help you evaluate how you're doing as a mother in just the day-to-day of parenting.

Don't forget for a one-time donation or monthly pledge to our ministry, we'll send you a copy of Jody Bernt's wonderful book as a thank you for supporting us. It's called *Praying the Scriptures for Your Children*. You can get that information in the show notes.

Our ministry is here for you throughout the year. You can always contact Focus on the Family for any family needs you might have. On behalf of Whitney Lowe and everyone on staff here at Focus on the Family, I'm Erin Smalley. Happy Mother's Day.

Guest (Male): Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down? Trust fading? Conflict that never seems to resolve? There's still hope. Hope Restored Marriage Intensives by Focus on the Family help couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship.

Right now, through the Marriage Investment Initiative, Hope Restored is investing $1,000 toward marriage intensives. Visit hoperestored.com/marriage-investment.