Legacy of a Mother: Grace and More Grace
By Sue Donaldson
I’m fully aware that we become mothers to teach us humility.
Just when we’re about to understand who we really are, our Junior High angst is almost a thing of the past, we may have finished a college degree or two, and even used that degree in a semi-significant manner—about then, we start having kids. And we begin, like a baby, to learn who we are, who God is, how He means for us to live, all over again. Just when we’re thinking we’re such smarty-pants—then we have daughters, and it starts once more.
No one actually taught me how to be a mother. I have a Master’s Degree – I don’t really remember what it’s in.
What I know is this: I need God every day to mother. And that will be our greatest legacy to our children—our own desperate daily dependence on God and His grace.
The most important thing we can do for our children is to make God our most important thing.
TREASURES THAT LAST
I came across this quote:
Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring and integrity, they think of you.
Those are all good things. My mom was those things. I hope I’m those things but there’s something more—something greater—that God has called you and I to:
Live so that when your children think of God’s grace, God’s greatness, and God’s love, they think of you.
Another word for legacy could be “treasure.”
My parents had a beautiful old wooden rocking chair. Mom rocked all of her babies in it.
Mom would say: Put your name on what you want. It seemed to work. There weren’t any fights. (I got the rocker.)
One reason why there weren’t any fights is because my parents weren’t millionaires, so their treasures were more sentimental in nature.
Secondly, what’s truly valuable in their legacy had already been passed down—those intangibles like honesty, hospitality, taking responsibility, finishing a job once started, not buying things on credit (well, not everything was passed down successfully!)
GRACE AND MORE GRACE
Live so that when your children think of God’s grace, God’s greatness, and God’s love, they think of you.
Why start with grace? I think it’s because we need grace the most, and we need to give grace the most.
We know that no mother is perfect, and that our biggest critic is usually ourselves—until our daughters turn 13 at which time they take on that job with relish and finally begin to relinquish it around age 22.
Any legacy we’ve received includes both negative and positive aspects.
We all know our moms made some mistakes and we hope we won’t do the same. Speaking from experience, I’ve made some of my mother’s same mistakes and plenty of my own that had nothing to do with her.
The greatest legacy we share with our kids is to show them the heart of God—and at His heart is grace and forgiveness. It may need to start with forgiving our moms.
You may be thinking about now: I didn’t get a very good legacy.
It can be a good exercise to look at a painful past to help us understand our present and improve the future, but it needs to be just that—an exercise, not a lifestyle. We glance, we glean, but we don’t stay there.
The most important part in that exercise might need to be the act of forgiveness.
That’s not easy. C.S. Lewis said:
We all think that forgiveness is a great idea until we have someone to forgive.
SECOND CHANCES
One author writes about “breaking the chain of un-grace” through doing things differently from how we were raised.
The greatest legacy we can leave is to forgive the past, and start a new chain of grace. That shows God to a hurting world, including your kids.
When our oldest was in 8th grade, she started begging for a dog.
Now we’d had dogs before—and rabbits and pet rats, even a kitten for a week or so. But they had never panned out. My husband had to return more than one, and he, for sure, was deaf to Bonnie’s cries.
I, on the other hand, was trying to wade through the emotions of a 13-year-old who didn’t feel so great about herself.
A dog seemed like a worthy option. I needed all the help I could get.
When I talked to Mark about it, he said, “We tried dogs before. The girls didn’t take responsibility. They had their chance.”
I know exactly where the Man-in-Plaid was standing when he made that announcement.
I replied, “Well, God is the God of second chances – remember that I gave you a second chance!” (I had said “no” to his first proposal—3 years later I said “yes” but that story will be left for another time.)
I continued, “I gave you a second chance, remember?”
At that point he was probably regretting that he had asked for that second chance, but the point was this: We make mistakes. We act irresponsibly. We don’t deserve a second or third or fifth chance, but God forgives, He gives grace.
We got a dog. Mark ended up walking the dog. Sunny lived 14 years and got all three of our girls through Jr. High and High School.
CHANGING THE LEGACY
When we show grace to our kids, our husbands, ourselves— we are showing the heart of God— and that’s the best legacy we can leave our families.
My own mother is an example of someone who broke the “chain of ungrace” in the way she raised me and my brothers and sisters.
She had to learn— through trial and error—how to be hospitable. It wasn’t a grace she had received, but she went ahead and worked at it until she became comfortable with it.
By the time I came along, she’d practiced hospitality over and over again.
I was fourth of five kids, so she was pretty used to it by then. Our home was a veritable motel for traveling missionaries, relatives, as well as people she met on the street.
She passed down to us the ease and confidence to open our homes and hearts—something she herself had not received.
That’s our challenge; even if we haven’t received a certain legacy in our past, we can begin now, with God’s help, to change that legacy.
Let me leave you with two questions:
First, Is there anything you still need to forgive in your upbringing? Take it to the cross and let God do His perfect work.
And secondly, Is there any chain of un-grace you need to break for the sake of your family? Tell God about it. He wants to help us. He’s all about grace.
About Sue
Speaker, author, podcaster, Sue Donaldson and her husband, Mark, live in San Luis Obispo, California. Sue taught high school English, part of the time in Brazil with Wycliffe Bible Translators. She and her husband, Mark, have raised 3 daughters who keep them at the bank and on their knees. Sue loves connecting people to one another, to God, and to His Word, and has been speaking for the last 20 years or so with long pauses for babies, diapers and soccer pasta parties. She blogs at WelcomeHeart.com and hosts a weekly podcast: WELCOME HEART: Living a Legacy Life.
Join Sue’s free Facebook group: Welcome Heart, Welcome Home.
Check out Sue’s books:
- Come to My Table: God’s Hospitality and Yours
- Hospitality, 101: Lessons from the Ultimate Host, a 12-Week Bible Study
- Table Mentoring: A Simple Guide to Coming Alongside
- Say Something Special: 252 Conversation Starters, The Ultimate Guide to Stimulating Table Talk
Download Sue’s FREE GIFTS:
Sue’s Favorite Relaxing Recipes
“70 Things I’ve Learned in 70 Years”