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Health & Fitness

A Mother's Love

Union of feminine and masculine qualities in parenting

"God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers."

        ----  Jewish Proverb

I like this proverb. Even though I believe that God actually IS everywhere, I think  mothers are the living proof. My own mother was a great example. She really did seem to be everywhere and she pretty much knew everything. We discovered early on that hiding anything from her was impossible.

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I remember when I had been misbehaving in grade school and I didn't think she knew. That night she sat down on my bed in tears, telling me how disappointed she was and how much she believed in me. After getting over the shock of her knowing about my behavior, I was in utter dismay at how I had made her feel.  Lesson learned. Mom knows everything and the worst feeling in the world is letting her down.

She was a Christian Scientist, so that meant that we grew up thinking of God as representing both fathering and mothering qualities. When we needed discipline, it came from both mom and dad. Comfort and tenderness too. When I was a teenager, my father's  secretary one time pulled me aside and said, "Your father is the last of the true gentlemen." It was true. He was a real man and a very gentle one.

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My parents, together, were a pretty good example of what Christian Science founder, Mary Baker Eddy, meant when she wrote, "Union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes completeness." Mothering includes firmness and strength. Fathering includes compassion and tenderness. In a single parent home, one parent can provide all the needed qualities since they are God-derived rather than gender-specific.

I think we can celebrate Mother's Day by saluting mothers--and fathers--everywhere, who love their children with the same all-knowing, all-embracing love that best expresses God in our lives.

As God, speaking to the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, says:

"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you."     

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