It is always difficult picking out cards for my Mama and Mother's Day is especially difficult. I have to read through so many to say just the right words; nothing to sentimental, nothing to lovey, and nothing stating she was the best Mother in the world. I WISH I had grown up in a family with a loving, kind, sweet, encouraging and non-abusive mother, but the fact is, I didn't.
For several years I hated my mother. I kept bottled inside all the pain and abuse caused by her words and what-should-have-been loving hands. The poison and destruction that did to my soul were a burden that I physically and mentally carried. It colored many decisions and prevented me from knowing and experiencing a genuine love and affection for people around me.
It wasn't until several years had passed that I finally met someone who showed me what true love was all about. My Chip helped me to "settle down" and with him I finally felt whole. The years spent with him grounded me and were the happiest years of my life. Because I was able to finally realize what true love was it made me sad for not knowing it all the years of my childhood. My heart still carried around that hatred, and my soul still had a void that could not be filled.
It was these years with my Chippie that I finally realized what was missing was God. And it was a friend and co-worker, Dianne Stohrer, that brought me back to church where I was again able to connect with that which was divine in my soul. Within the depth of that divine light is all the strength, peace, forgiveness, and love anyone would ever need. Admittedly, I have allowed myself to shut off my access to it and have not heeded it's gently knudging me toward more peaceful and healthy decisions. I had a hard time seeing and hearing the direction along the "divine path" planned for me by a loving Creator because I allowed all my past mistakes, my pain, my self-doubt and inner self-destruction to push it from view and out of hearing range.
God had to find a way to get through to me so that I could hear Him. It came in the form of dreams. When I was asleep my mind, I guess, would be still enough to hear the soft voice of a loving Creator whispering His love in my heart. And it was God who gave me a vision on night that allowed one of the greatest weights to lift from my soul. A vision just as clear and sweet to me today and when I felt it. It lifted a weight from my shoulders that I had become so accustomed to and removed a wall which kept access to that which is divine always out of reach.
Here is my dream...
My sister and I were on our way to have a private supper with Pop-Pop (God had revealed Himself to me in an intimate way that modeled the term Abba, or "Daddy" in Hebrew, which for me was revealed to my mind as Pop-Pop). We arrived and met Him at the door of His house. It wasn't a temple, but it was definitely deserving of a King yet comfortable to come into more because of the way God treated us as His children and less about the furnishings.
He led us down the hallway to His private dining room. This was a smaller room than the Main Hall where all of His children would gather on occasion. As we walked past a large tapestry on the wall I happened to notice the beautiful pictures woven into the tapestry. It was almost like a map, but if you looked very closely and studied it, you could see it moved. I realized that this was how God watched the world and saw how intricately it was woven so that a single thread affected so many others. We are all connected more closely than we in our human minds can understand, but with Pop-Pop it was all so easy to see.
We continued till we entered a door to the private supper room and my two brothers, Lynn and Danny, were already there. We were all happy and smiling at each other; joking around in "our way" of poking sarcastic comments toward love but yet words understood as being loving. (Here on Earth, this would NEVER happen as we don't even speak to our two brothers anymore). As I looked over to Pop-Pop to start, I asked, "What's for Supper?"
He said, "We can't start yet, we're not all here yet!"
But I said, "We ARE all here, Pop-Pop! There is Lynn and Danny and Faye! And I'm here so who is left?"
God said, "My Sweet Angel isn't here yet!"
As He said those words, the door to our intimate encounter with God opened, and in walked my Mother!!! And Pop-Pop said, "THERE'S my Sweet Angel!"
I woke up in tears at this point. In just the smallest part of a second, all the weight, the anger, the hatred, the mental tapes of my mother's voice were all erased! I was healed of all that had kept me from realizing that Louise Starnes was just another of God's children just as were Faye, Lynn, Danny and myself. I had certainly NEVER thought of her as a "Sweet Angel" before. I realized that if God could still call her His angel and love her even though she treated us all as abusively as she did, then who am I NOT to do so?
I had been speaking to Mama on the phone every Sunday and our weekly call had become our ritual. We never talked about anything important, mostly safe stuff like the weather, or the news, or the Tennessee Vols football game, or the Nascar race on TV. So Sunday morning, after having this dream, Mama answers the phone and the first words out of her mouth are, "THERE'S my Sweet Angel!" I knew then that my dream was true; that God had healed me of my resentment.
We still keep our conversations "safe", as it is very difficult for her to show love and emotion. Lovey-dovey words and sentiments are just lost on her and you can tell if you try that she is uncomfortable. Yes, I wish I had the kind of Mom my friends had, but that dream has brought me more peace and Mother's Day isn't such a bad day anymore.
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