To Love Like Mom

As a young child, I always had a penchant for learning new words. One word that stuck to me is “emulate”—to imitate, follow, or echo. I heard it from a speaker in church one Sunday morning as she talked about people in the Bible who passed down their faith from one generation onto the next. If there was one thing young people should emulate from the preceding generation, she emphasized, it is their walk with God. As young as we were, she advised, we should already look for people worth emulating.

My mom was the first person that came to mind.

It had always been her example that I followed— as a young girl mimicking the way she put lipstick on; a gradeschooler watching her study long hours to finish her degree; a teenager deciding early on that, like her, I would totally homeschool my future children; as a university student recalling that if my mom could finish her thesis while raising two girls at the time, I had no excuse not to finish mine; and now as a twenty-something trying to reconcile the values instilled in me with the realities of the world before me.

But if there is one supreme lesson I aim to follow through her example, it is in the way she loved. Growing up, this to me was the greatest mystery and most wonderful gift altogether. I witnessed this, not just in the way she loved the “lovable”, but moreso, the “unlovable”. (Safe to say, I am both.)

Through her example, along with many others I have been blessed to encounter in my life, I have come to know that a mother’s love is a love that takes after its purest definition, found in 1 Corinthians 13.

Mom is patient. Mom is kind. Patience is a virtue, and the first a woman finds herself having from the very moment she learns she is to be a mother. I suppose motherhood is meant to develop patience first and foremost, like a test to see if one is cut out for it. Waiting could mean nine months of pregnancy, or the painstaking period of going through an adoption process, or even years and years of praying to have a child. Simply put, no mom becomes a mom without learning to be patient. A mom’s patience develops and is constantly tested as her children grow up.

She also learns to be kind—not merely charitable or nice or cute as the rest of us mere mortals perceive it to be. The genuine kindness a mother has is sacrificial to much greater lengths. A mom’s heart beats, celebrates, and breaks before yours does. It’s almost incomprehensible how one can have such capacity for this kind of empathy. But moms make it seem like the most natural thing in the world!

She does not envy, she does not boast, she is not proud. While our generation struggles with comparison and peer pressure and an insatiable drive to outperform one another, mothers show us that no energy is worth wasting on these things. Instead, they wear humility with so much confidence. While these women have devoted centuries to developing methods and principles on how to raise children, passing down values from generation to generation, they admit that they still have so much more to learn. In the process, they teach us the value of respect as they guide, celebrate, and walk with one another.

She does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. As a young adult, I encounter relational struggles more often. In the few times I have been wronged, there is the nagging feeling to surrender to anger, bitterness, and resentment. Yet what keeps me from doing so is the constant reminder of the many times I was on the other end of the situation, where I was the one who wronged my mom. And there have been A LOT of those times. Despite that, she is never the type to bring up a past hurt or a foregone anger. Instead, she deals with them gracefully, lifting them all up to God, and even picking up the pieces herself.

I see this, not only in the way she disciplines me, but also in the way she lets forgiveness overflow to those who least deserve it. Never the type to pursue vengeance, she chooses to look at people with compassion and dignity.

She does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Ever catch yourself sounding like your mom when processing emotions with your friends? Or maybe hearing her voice at the back of your head in the heat of an argument? Or replaying her words in your mind when you need comfort or encouragement? To most of us, our mothers have become our voice of reason. But what makes a mother’s voice truly resound is when it is filled with truth that comes from the word of God. We battle with many voices in our culture today that try to compete with that truth, and mothers stand in the forefront of those battles, tirelessly cheering us on for as long and as loud as they could.

She always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. No matter what age and stage of life, we all need a mother who will protect, trust, hope, and persevere on our behalf. Of course, we grow a little more independent each day. But that does not stop a mother from persisting in that role – whether or not she is seen, heard, or appreciated.

Lastly, a mother’s Love never fails. No matter how highly I think of her, my mom would be the first to admit that she does have her moments of failure, as I’m sure other moms do too. But even those moments become true testaments that everything they do and are will surely be bound to fail if not for the Love that embraced, cradled, and lavished them first.

As the years progress until both of us are fully adults, the transparency my mom and I have with each other enables me to observe how dependent she is on the love of God to be all that she is to me. Now, isn’t that a person worth emulating?

Jasmine Almira Buen

From Bible stories as a child, to novels as a Literature major, now to legal cases as a law student, Jasmine Buen has been reading her whole life. She also enjoys telling stories by writing essays, wedding articles, and someday, her own book.