A Spiritual Mother's Four Gifts, and Six Traps
· 2 min
A spiritual mother gives four gifts. These four are also what every natural mother needs to give her children.
Four Gifts
1. Presence. What a child needs most isn't a lecture. It's someone being there. Many people have known the loneliness of "having a mom, but it's like not having one." Our God is Immanuel, the God who is with us forever. When I'm there, the child isn't afraid.
2. Safe independence. A good mother lets her child have their own thoughts, lets them say "no," without losing her love for it. A spiritual mother shouldn't shape her spiritual children into copies of herself.
3. Accepting imperfection. If a child is loved only when they perform well, they'll hide, pretend, and live in shame. A spiritual mother lets people tell the truth: I failed, and that's okay.
4. Letting go so they can grow. A spiritual mother's goal isn't for people to never be able to leave her. It's for Christ to be formed in them.
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,
Galatians 4:19
The first three are fairly easy for me. The last one is really hard. My daughter is thirty this year, and I still often want to hold on. The only thing I can do is trust God: she's in God's hands. And when I really can't let go, I go and pray. A spiritual mother's greatest joy is the day her spiritual children become spiritual mothers to someone else.
Six Traps
The Mom Factor describes six kinds of mothers who need to change. This isn't condemnation. It's a mirror:
- The Phantom: gives food and drink, but is emotionally absent. What matters is the relationship, not just getting things done.
- The China Doll: too fragile herself to handle her child's tears and anger. She needs to stand firm in God.
- The Controller: won't let her child become independent and wants others to do things my way. She needs to respect the other person and let them come before God for themselves.
- The Trophy Mother: wants her child to bring her glory, treating her children as her own achievement. She needs to love unconditionally.
- The Boss: still giving orders when her child is grown. She needs to let go and become their co-worker and friend.
- The Credit Card Mother: trades help and favors for dependence, making her child feel they owe her. She needs to point people to God, not to herself.
When I examine myself, I'm a bit of a Controller, and a bit of a Credit Card Mother too. I'm very willing to help my kids and give to my kids, but I can't use kindness to buy dependence.
A spiritual mother isn't asking people to follow me,
but walking alongside them as we follow Christ together.
My daughter loves the Lord deeply. Spiritually she's sometimes more mature than I am. I'm her natural mother, but now we're more like sisters, and I walk alongside her as we follow Christ together.