What I Learned From Mother

As a child, I had many instances where my mother (sometimes father) tried teaching me a life lesson. My lack of understanding of the bigger picture of the situation kept me from seeing that their rebukes, cautions, protection, were done in love, not cruelty. I didn't appreciate their life experience and wisdom until I had children of my own, including my own struggles. It makes sense that parents want to sometimes protect their children to a point where we may perceive them as being cruel or unfair.

I was in fifth grade, Mrs. Lovell's class. It was a hot afternoon after lunch break. We all sat at our desks enjoying the cool of the room. The teacher announced we were taking a mental break from testing and class work, and were going to watch a movie. This of course was super exciting to us kids. She had wheeled in the TV/VCR combo from the office while we were at lunch. She pressed play and fast forwarded through the previews and some of the opening credits. The screen read, "Trading Mom". Some of you may or may not remember this movie. It made a big impression to me as a child because I recognized my mother was flawed and sometimes (though guilty as it makes me now feel having thought it) I wished for different things in a mom. Often I thought it'd be nice if she were more loving, or patient, and kind.

The movie told the story about three siblings living in chaos with their single mother. They were not happy with things at home and blamed their mother for their unhappiness. The children one day visit a neighbor who is tending her vast garden. They bring up their disappointment with home life and she reveals a spell to make their mother disappear. That night the children recite the spell incantation and wake up the next morning with everything, even memories of their mother gone. They seek out their neighbor to tell her what happened and she gives them instructions to go to the Mommy Market. Exciting for a kid right, to pick out their perfect mother?! Well, they soon find out that they have only three tries to choose the mom of their dreams, but it turns out to be quite the disaster. They end up wishing their real mom to return, which of course she did after they learned a valuable lesson.

The lesson I learned was that things are not always as bad as I see them, and that to love someone, you love them in spite of our own personal opinion of their imperfections. Yes, I've been heart broken, emotionally bruised, and angry at some of my mother's flaws. But I cannot deny that I love her regardless because she is my mother. She is a daughter of God, just like me. I don't doubt for a second that she was chosen for me so that we would help each other grow. She is more than her mistakes, as I know I am in my Heavenly Father's eyes. That love I learned from willingly and unconditionally loving someone, helped me in learning how to submit to my Heavenly Father without feeling the need to question everything I didn't quite understand. Too many try to change others that they forget that the one person they can change is themselves. Us...that is who we have control over. Over the years I have developed what I feel is a close relationship with God, and this has come with similar motions as my relationship with my earthly parents. I have felt disappointment towards Him, felt he was being cruel when he withheld blessings from my life, have felt angry when he saw fit for me to learn a new lesson, but I still love Him and understand that these are my very human responses, and own lack of understanding.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9

It is easy to point the finger in our time of need and grief. What is not easy is looking inward and admitting our faults. One of my favorite stories about Christ is about the adulterous woman brought before him:

Photo Credit: LDS.org

"Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." John 8:1-11

This is a wonderful reminder that we have no business judging others, especially not God.

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Mosiah 3:19

I hope you don't find this message discouraging, rather I encourage you to look inward when you are tempted to blame God. Remember that He is perfect and all knowing.

"O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it." 2 Nephi 9:20

Trust God loves you and wants what is best for you, just like you would your children, and your parents for you. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught "God derives His great and continuing joy and glory by increasing and advancing His creations, and not from new intellectual experiences. His plan of salvation is constantly underway -- not constantly under revision...In a very real sense, all we need to know is that God knows all."