Models of Love: A Tribute to the Mothers in My Life

I am privileged to have four significant mothers in my life: my wife, my mother, my grandmother and my mother-in-law.

Each of these wonderful women has been an example and an inspiration to me over the course of the 30 years of my life.  And each of them has demonstrated many facets of love to me during that time.

Specifically, though, I find as I reflect on them and the impact that they have had on my life, that each of them - though providing a full-orbed love - has demonstrated quite strongly a particular facet of love.  This is not to say that particular facet of love took the place of the others or that other facets were not there in all of them - only that each of them has taught me a great deal about a particular type of love.

Patient Love - My Wife

I know this will come as a shock to anyone who knows me, but I am not the easiest person to get along with or to live with.  I am moody, tense, irritable and forgetful.  I like to have things my own way and am often far too quick to resort to whining and pouting like a 2 year old if I don't get them that way.  Moreover, though I am improving, I am lousy at housework - just plain lousy.

Yet through all of this, my wife has shown a patient love that never seems to get tired of my stupidity and idiotic behavior.  I know that I must annoy the crap out of her sometimes, but she is always patient and kind with me, whether I deserve it or not.

She is also a patient mother (for the most part) - dealing with the stressors of kids yelling and playing far better than I do in most cases.  She patiently works with Ike and Hannah to teach them words and games, not throwing up her hands in frustration when they don't "get it" right away.

She is my model of God's patient love.

Steadfast Love - My Mother

The one thing I value most about my mother is her constancy.  She is rock steady and steadfast.  At times when everything else seems to be going to hell around me, I know that I can call my mother and she will be there with words that I need to hear.

They may be words of encouragement and they may be words of admonishment, but my mother has never been afraid to speak to me the words I need to hear whether I like them or not.

Even when, as a teenager, I said hurtful and evil things to her and treated her cruelly, she did not waver in her love for me.  Looking back now on the times when I thought she "hated" me, I realize that many of her actions were done out of steadfast love for me - even if they were excruciatingly painful to her.

In my eyes (though I know that no person is truly like this), her faith has not wavered since I was a child, and I draw strength from knowing that she is steadfastly there.

She is my model of God's steadfast love.

Limitless Love - My Grandmother

While I have lived a relatively easy life in comparison to many others, there have been moments and seasons of that life that were difficult to endure.  In each of those cases, my grandmother showed me the meaning of limitless love.

During my first weeks at military school, when I was unsure whether I could survive, I would call her on a regular basis and beg her, crying, to come and get me and bring me home.  She never scolded me or told me to "man up" or said "I can't take this anymore."  She encouraged constantly and never stopped being there to answer the phone.

I have lived - my whole family has lived - with my grandmother on two separate occasions.  When the need arose, she was willing to allow us to do so without reservation.  Though it was certainly less than ideal at times, she never complained and never said "enough is enough, you have to go."

She is my model of God's limitless love.

Self-Giving Love - My Mother-in-Law

Though I have only been married to her daughter for nine years this Wednesday, I have had the benefit of knowing my mother-in-law my entire life.  As a child growing up, I watched her serve the church as the Missions president - teaching about missionaries and ministry around the world.  Constantly.  It seemed like the two constants in my young church life were that my mother would be the church treasurer and my (future) mother-in-law would be the Missions President.  And even from a young age, it was easy to tell that she poured herself completely into the work of supporting the church's missionaries.

It wasn't until I got older and fell in love with her daughter, though, that I really began to understand how deeply my mother-in-law gives of herself in loving the church, her family and others.  I have never known someone so willing to quietly do whatever needs to be done regardless of the sacrifice she might have to make.

Every time Melissa and I have moved, she (and my father-in-law) have taken vacation time to come and help us pack and load.  She was there when both of our children were born, coaching Melissa far better than I could ever have hoped to.  She has been there for her family and her children in ways too numerous to tell.

I deeply admire her, and she is my model of God's self-giving love.

Four amazing women - all of whom are mothers in my life.  Each of them has taught me something about what it means to be loved and to love others.  Each of them has shown all of the characteristics of love in one way or another, but from each I have learned specifically about the type of love mentioned.

I am who I am because of these four mothers.  I am beholden to each of them for the gift(s) of love they have given me, and I hope that I will someday learn to live up to the model of each kind of love in my own life.

I thank God that I have mothers like these.

jB