Today, for the second time in my life, I got a pedicure.
As I sat in my comfortable chair, water whirling around
my toes, I observed the women around me.
Wives, young women, older women, moms, grandmothers, daughters—it was a
comingling of every dynamic. Every woman
there wanting to be pampered, wanting to be just a little bit more beautiful.
It is all so foreign to me.
In a setting like this, I find myself always wishing that
I had, had a better mom—‘better’ in the sense that I wish she had been the kind
of mom who taught me how to be a girl. A
mom who told me what clothes are flattering, had opinions on make-up, could
share beauty tips with me, wanted to go shopping together, would take me for my
first mani-pedi, and would buy me my first heels—all the welcome-to-womanhood
things.
But here I am at 26 just now learning how to be a girl.
The relationship between my mother and I has always been
a difficult one. There is so much resentment
built upon my heart I wonder if I will ever move beyond it.
I took a shower earlier tonight, and the let the water
run over me. I looked at my feet, at my newly
painted green nails, and somewhere in my thoughts decided when I go home I am going
to take my mom to a nail salon. I heard
God saying this to me:
When you say ‘better’ you fail to realize your mom
gave you her best. She withheld nothing
she had, and what you thought she didn’t do, she couldn’t do. You look at your mom and realize that all
those things for which you ache, maybe she possesses the same ache? Did her mother love her? Or did she grow up in a stern Japanese
home? Was she told she was
beautiful? Was she taken for manicures
and pedicures? Was she taught how to be
a girl? How could she teach you if she
wasn’t taught herself? How could she be
anything else than the mother that she had?
You don’t realize how blessed you are.
You don’t realize all that I’ve given you. Only now are you coming to understand My
choices for you…the people I’m putting in your life now to help shape you and
form you. Do not be selfish with these
lessons. Do not withhold, but instead
give your mother what she was never able to give you. Love her like she was never able to love
you. The blind don’t lead those who can
see. Now that I am bestowing this vision
unto you, do not take it for granted, and do not forget from where you came to
be where you are now.
Purposeful, intentional love. I am going to show my mom what it feels like
to be a girl. And now because Christ has
given me these eyes to see, this heart to understand, so I will show my mom the
love I longed for as a girl. I will take
these things I wanted from my mom and give them to her, because I’m coming back
to love her with a new love.
There are a lot of things my mom never gave me, because
she couldn’t. But I can give her this,
because now I can. A small favor to
some, but this is what I hope to be an illuminating act of love for our
relationship as mother and daughter.
ACTION PLAN MOM: A mother-daughter day being pampered and spoiled, and a lunch for
just the two of us.
