We hear a theme in the Bible about God.  God wants to be that inward mother, always nurturing, always protecting, better than a human mother, without flaws, constantly loving, knowing the right thing to say and do when that time comes — knowing when that time is.  Many of us have experienced that imperfect love of a human caregiver who felt unprepared or overwhelmed.  Some may have even experienced neglect or abuse.  But the Bible tells us that God always wants to nurture and always remembers us. We are never neglected or abused by God.  God is love. There is never any neglect or abuse, even for a short second.

          We humans make movies about children left home alone, overlooked or forgotten.  I bet you can do the McCally Culkin face.  He is 8 and his big family has left for Christmas, leaving him behind. And there is a sequel, so it happens more than once.

          And we all have our stories where our parents didn’t get it right.  Like me, many of you can remember the three-seat station wagons that hailed a fourth seat turned backwards, the outside with the fake wood panel.  It was the original “Mom van” of the boomer era.  We had one and could easily fill it up. My grandmother lived almost two hours from Birmingham, Alabama – the only place to get school clothes and the only place to get Christmas presents. We traveled that long road twice a year  in August and in December.  It had an S&H Green Stamp, a Singer store, a fabric barn and a K-Mart – everything a grandmother needed to spoil four little girls.  I had one sister, and she was a bit of a handful for my mother and constantly doted on by my grandmother. I had two cousins who lived far away in Huntsville who only came home to my grandmother’s house in central Alabama when they were needed in the field, and their payment was the “School Clothes” trip that took place in August.  It involved traveling for miles and miles to the stores and going in first one after another.  My mother worked nights as a nursing supervisor, and we would start out when she got home from work from a hospital, and she would be the driver.  My grandmother did not drive.  We would start around sunrise and get home after the stores closed, add two hours for travel.  So, by the very end of the trip, my mother and grandmother had dealt with a lot of girls crying for something or fighting in the backseat.  I was the youngest, and as such I got hand-me-downs galore, and I wasn’t old enough for school. I was just along for the ride.  We got to our final destination, K-Mart on Greensprings Highway, and it was already getting dark – so pretty late in the day. I found the toy aisle. I knew I wasn’t getting anything; toys came at Christmas alone.  But I still wanted to see what was on that aisle, and found a German shepherd life-sized, stuffed animal.  I was enamored. I stayed there while they shopped for underwear and socks and other things my grandmother couldn’t make, which wasn’t that much.  But when they got through the register and had taken all of the packages to the car, there was something they had forgotten.  And she sat in the toy aisle playing with a stuffed animal.  I am not the only child who has been forgotten, I am sure. 

I remember forgetting to take my daughter to daycare and showing up with her at mental health for work.  It’s not that hard to do with all that is on a mother’s mind.  But if you are nursing there are physiological things that clue you that you need to find your child to nurse it.  Yet in the scripture even a nursing mother might forget her child, but God does not.  God is the mother who always remembers, never gets overwhelmed, never has too bad a day to care, never has its mind on those who are louder or who are favorites –God treats all equal, is all loving, is always there within, God is that Inward Mother, and that inward mother is mindful of each of us. 

Time and again bad times have happened, and we have moved on, or wish we could. As God loves us from within, we heal and become more whole, more well.  We are able to get through tough times because we know that we can be cared for by the one who puts the stars in the sky.  We know that we can be made whole by the one who knitted us together in the womb.

What better time to look at the mothering attributes of God than on Mother’s Day.  First God remembers us.  But it says in Luke that Jesus had wanted to gather Israel under him like a mother hen does her chicks under her feathers— when a mother hen draws her chicks under her, they are protected, they are nurtured, they know they belong — and all of us have an internal way to access this God within. This internal mother, this spark of Light or Life will guide you to be protected and will protect you if you but listen.  I don’t know how, and I don’t know why sometimes bad things happen to good people – so God only protects up to a point as long as everyone involved is mindfully listening to the voice of love guiding from within.  God is mindful of us no matter our choices or others’ choices about us. We simply need to be mindful of God within showing us love, giving us all that we need.

 Psalm 8: 3-4 says

 When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is humankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

You are not alone in whatever you are going through.  You are being accompanied.  You will be in the nurturing care of the one who created everything, the one who made you, and understands everything.  And will forgive anything. If you have hard feelings toward your mother, relying on the nurturing of God can help you find the compassion and grace to forgive her for not being what you needed. If you were not the perfect parent, going to that inward mother in you for nurturing can help you to forgive yourself. You never have to long for a mother’s hug or insight.  You can allow that of God in you to foster a loving environment around you so that your world is that hug, and your world becomes a place to seek insight and understanding, your world can become a more safe place for you to be yourself with increased potential to nurture yourself and encourage yourself.   One thing my mother always did was to encourage me to do things.  Her “You can do it!” is forever in my head.  It helped when I needed the courage to come all the way across the United States to a place I did not know for a job here with this church.  Think of what a hug would feel like. What kind of life would be like this hug for you?  How can you help make this a reality?

How can you use this connection with the God of Love within to  reconnect us to our sense of self determination? Authur Kasia Kolek  from an article on Rediscovering and Reconnecting to Your Inner Mother says, “One of the most important aspects of mothering is building self-belief and a sense of self-efficacy in the child. From the earliest moments of life, the child starts to venture towards independence, and their mother’s role is to facilitate this process by encouraging safe exploration.

A good-enough Mum allows the child to try new things, attempt tasks on their own, take risks, and she provides comfort when needed. In that way, she nurtures a sense of safety, support and growing independence. This is particularly evident when a child is learning to walk – a secure child wanders off a little, looks back to see if their mother is still there, and with reassurance, happily moves forward to explore the world a bit more. This process continues throughout childhood in many different aspects and on many different levels.”  This is the scene the psalmist gave us in Psalms 131.  As a child of God completely dependent on that Inner Mother God to strengthen us, we become that independent or weaned child, satisfied and curious.  We know we are both free to explore our options and being watched by God at all times.  Most of all we are completely and wholly loved.

Having and visualizing this active inward source of motherly love can have many other positive effects in your life and the world around you.  

It can build a relationship with oneself, that then raises self-worth and feeling of empowerment.  For others around us, it can help us navigate relationships, increase self-awareness, and have greater emotional resilience. The same article I quoted from a little bit ago also says that “Our Inner Mother represents a nurturing presence within ourselves that we can tap into for guidance, support, and self-care.”

It is the part of us that embodies qualities such as love, compassion, and tenderness, but also reflects strength, provides structure and the ability to set boundaries—the same qualities we often seek from our external mother figures, even if, and especially if one had a tough relationship with one’s mother.

As we sit with the idea of God as our inward mother, we can let it flow over and through us – this all nurturing always protecting energy of strong, protective and giving love.

Queries:

• Think of what a hug would feel like. What kind of life would be like this hug for you?
• How can you help make this a reality?