I Say A Little Prayer....

My daughter's Bridal Shower was held a few weeks ago. I read a prayer before the meal. I spent quite a lot of time searching for one that would appropriately express the tone I was hoping for. No matter what prayer I looked at it just wasn't right.

The shower was for my daughter and I wanted the prayer to be personal. I wanted it to mean something. Then I decided to use one that was less emotional, easier for me to read in front of the gathering, and one that struck the right cord. Then I sat and wrote the one I wanted to, the one that I will give to her someday soon. One that came straight from my heart to hers.

It's my prayer for my lovely daughter.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessing of family and friends who are here today in celebration of "their" upcoming wedding.

I thank You for not taking me that day, for allowing me to remain with her and be the mother I so wanted to be.

Be with them now as they prepare their hearts for the gift of marriage, and be with them always as they grow in their unconditional love and face the ups and downs of life together.

Life is so hard, so many obstacles get thrown at us, help them to reach for each other when things go wrong. Walk along beside them and gently nudge them back on the path when they go astray.
Protect them physically, mentally and spiritually. Help them to accept one another as they are and leave any changing that needs to be done in Your hands.

Help them to see, in each other, the things they can draw strength from, the safe place they can provide the other and the acceptance that only comes from pure love. Let them see in each other what they are rather than what they want the other to be.
Finally, in your time, please help them to offer the world a tangible symbol of their love and commitment.

Help them to remain absolutely silly in love, head over heels, full of infectious joy, such that others will feel when they are near.
We thank You, Lord, for this meal prepared today. We thank You for all of the wonderful women present, who took the time to be here with us today.

Let her see the successes, the fruits from the labor of commitment that some of these women grew in their own marriages. Let them be the example to her, proof that it can be done.
We thank You for giving us all joyful and happy hearts as two sets of families and friends come together to celebrate the new life they will begin together.

Let them draw support from us, let us always encourage them as a couple, as a unit, and not look at the other family as "them" but as "us". Help us to show the true meaning of strength in numbers and help us to stand with them when they need us.
We ask that you give us grateful hearts as well. Make us mindful of the needs of those who are without the love we are celebrating today.

Help us to show a positive example of love whether we have it ourselves or not. Help them to see that what they have in each other is a delicate treasure and to treat it as such. Help them to cling to what so many never catch a glimpse of and to hold tight when they hit the bumps that inevitably come through living in this world.
Help them to clearly see the road ahead as a journey to be traveled ... hand in hand. Help them to understand that when one stops the other is to reach back and not keep going until the other is ready. Help them to see that neither of them, alone, is perfect...but together, they can be perfection.
And finally, for my daughter, for this lovely young woman I cherish. Let her future husband see how special she is, let him see what he has in her, how she has added to his life and how she has made him the better man for loving him the way she does. Help him to let her inside and keep her there, close to his heart where she belongs. Where she deserves to be.

Help them to succeed where so many fail. Help them to keep trying no matter how hard, no matter how angry, no matter how much hurt has been inflicted. Help them to see that in You all things are possible.
AmenIndeed.

For Monica

The photo you see is one of my mother and me in November of 1958. This was the first photo taken of us as she had just brought me home from the hospital after I was born.

I love looking at this photo, I am held so tenderly, so lovingly and looked upon with such joy. All of my other childhood photos are those of a display, a pose for presentation for relatives to see. Stiff, unnatural and in some a little absence of emotion I think. It's hard for me to miss the feeling, the maternal love and pride at work here.

Rarely do we think of our own mothers this way, at least for me it's rare. I tend to focus on her more matured persona. She was about twenty then and living far, far from home and family. She was a new mother, unsure of so many things and trying to figure them out by herself. I've only really known the version of my mother that she let me see. The strong willed, private, determined, resolute guide. I grew up with her expectations clearly defined.

I never saw this woman, the one in the photo. This wisp of a beauty with glossy black hair pulled back. This delicate creature cradling a child she only just came to know as her own. What a lovely feeling for me to see a soft side of this intensely private woman. So private that she endured three sorrowful miscarriages following my birth, events I was never to know but for an old woman's slip of the tongue in later years.

I see her vulnerable side, I see her hesitant wonder, I see that she really didn't know everything....at least not at this point. Perhaps this photo captures the moment she looked at me and decided that over her dead body would any harm come to me, Perhaps this is when she filled with hope for what I might become...if she was to be a good mother.

Perhaps this is the moment she realized she loved someone more than herself, loved me so much that she would never fail me, let harm touch me or hurt break me. Perhaps this is when she stopped being that wisp of a girl with glossy black hair....and became my strong and fearless mother.

The mother I have become despite repeated recitations that I would never be like her. No matter how I deny it...I used her blueprint, I followed her to my own path to motherhood. I held my children and made the vows she made to me. I looked at them and promised them the moon and stars, I fell in love with them and for as many times as they have broken my heart...I hand it right back to them again because that's what mother's do. That's what my mother did.

So on this Mother's Day I will quietly thank my mother for looking at me that way, for falling in love with a tiny child that she knew nothing of except that I was part of her. For loving me no matter what simply because I was hers....and always would be.

Always would be....

Indeed.

Happy Mother's Day