Four Important Traits

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This Mother’s Day, I got to go to church. Yes, ‘got to go.’ Church is about the only time during the week where I get to just sit and listen, close my eyes, pray, and let the spirit fill me. Plus, I go to a fantastic church where the Pastor (Barry DeSheltler) is anything but ‘mamby pamby Pollyanna guy’. He’s the real thing. He’s like Garrison Keilor only he combines his stories with life’s most grappling topics.

This past week, he talked about how Mother’s Day is often pretty sad for many folks, including himself. He didn’t have the kind of mom we strive to be at Chic Mom. Many people don’t. Many people come out of childhood with no good memories, or even sadistic ones, and a deep sadness in their hearts about a lack of ever having been mothered – by their mothers.

That led Barry to talk about the people who filled the role of mother in bits and pieces throughout his life. They all had 4 traits in common: Trust, Time, Talking and Touch. He told the story of his high school girlfriend’s mother who exhibited these traits to him in a very real way, and he didn’t even realize it at the time. He just knew he liked her. When he would visit their home, he was pretty unaware that he had dirty, greasy hair.  In those days, there were no showers in the home; only a bathtub that was used maybe once a week, and he wasn’t pushed by his mother to take baths.  In a gentle way, his girlfriend’s mother suggested that she wash his hair over the sink. She showed him that he could trust an adult woman to care for him. She lathered his hair with a loving touch that he was completely unfamiliar with from his own mother, and all the while, talked to him, showing him that she was interested in him as a person. She sacrificed her own time to do this for him every week, even though she was busily raising kids of her own, and Barry later found out that she had painful arthritis in her hands.  In it no surprise that that woman is now Barry’s Mother in Law. Along with other loving non-parental adults, she fulfilled a role in his life that was lacking, and did so during his entire adult life.

This sermon touched me. It applies to life every day, not just on Mother’s Day. We can display these traits to anyone at any time. For people who do not become mothers through birth or adoption, they can give these traits to children – or anyone who needs a little mothering and make a real difference in the lives of others.

If you heard an inspiring sermon or talk about Mother’s Day at your Church, Synagogue, or Mosque, we’d love to hear about it. Be it a book, video or podcast, send us the link so we can share it with our readers.

Click here to hear Barry’s sermon, it is available here at Chicmommagazine.com. You can also download it onto your mp3 or i-pod.