A Mothering Kind of Love
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here! Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Before you begin reading, place a point of focus on your heart and a point of focus on your belly. Take a few slow, deep breaths. As you do, lift up a prayer of gratitude for the life and love inside of you.
Who are the people in your life that have created spaces of comfort, welcome, and unconditional love for you?
"Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." - Mother Teresa
Ruth 1:16
For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.
Food for Thought
When I was 23, I had just moved back home and found myself in the throes of a quarter-life crisis. One morning, as I was getting up to get ready for the day, my mom made a mundane remark - probably something as simple as “what are you gonna have for breakfast?” That simple question about my immediate future triggered a full-on breakdown. I suddenly found myself overcome by panic and tears before I’d even had a chance to get dressed. Without batting an eye, my mom walked over and wrapped her arms around me - her forever baby - and just let me cry it out on her shoulder. She didn’t make me feel ashamed of this sudden display of emotion. She also didn’t shy away from this response, which I'm sure was way more than she bargained for.
Today we celebrate those who provide space for us to be ourselves - who love us unconditionally, who comfort us, and who give us strength for a new day. These mothers of our lives - whether they be our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, friends, teachers, coaches, mentors, or other parenting role models - are so significant in shaping who we are. They provide us with guidance, protection, and discipline. They create space for us. They give us a place where we feel safe, where we belong, where we can fully and completely be ourselves without judgment or fear.
In the Book of Ruth, Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, find themselves in the most desperate of circumstances. Their husbands have died, leaving them destitute and vulnerable. Naomi chooses to return to her people in the hopes that someone will take her in. And, for their well-being, she encourages Ruth and Orpah to do the same, to leave her and to return to their own people where they can find new husbands who can take care of them. Though heartbroken, Orpah listens to Naomi’s advice. Ruth, however, chooses to stay saying, “wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”
Ruth finds a place of belonging with Naomi. While once strangers from completely different cultures, Naomi has become a place of comfort, safety, and protection. She embodies for Ruth what so many of our own mothers and mother-like figures have embodied for us - welcome, acceptance, protection, strength, comfort, peace, and love.
It is the same mothering love with which God formed creation and through which God continues to love each one of us. God’s love is the kind that creates spaces of belonging and sanctuary for us; it’s the kind of love that holds us in our uncertainty; it’s the kind of love that fights for us and encourages us into fulfilling our potential. God loves us unconditionally and completely, fully aware of our flaws and quirks, and chooses to hold us close despite them.
Perhaps this is the most significant gift of all - knowing not only that we are beloved, but that we each have a place of belonging. Knowing without a shadow of doubt that there is space for each one of us in the heart of God who calls us beloved, and that there is a place held especially for us within the hearts of those nurturing souls who have carried us and cared for us on this earth. What a gift it is to have a place where we can be completely and fully ourselves.
Take a moment and think of the people in your life who have shown you a mothering kind of love - who have extended to you a sense of belonging, a place of comfort and peace, and a space to be fully known and fully loved.
Find a way this week to express gratitude to some or all of these people for the ways their nurturing love has shaped your life. You could do this through a phone call, a written note, or even just a simple prayer of thanksgiving.
Blessing
Loving God,
Thank you for extending to each of us a place of belonging,
And for showing us what it means to create those spaces for others.
Help us to be people who create these welcoming spaces of nurturing love
where we and others can be fully seen and are fully loved.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
What does a truly welcoming, nurturing space look like or feel like to you?
Now share some of the people who created spaces like this in your life, and talk about how they have helped shape who you are.
Consider together how you can be intentional about creating spaces like this for yourself and for others in your day-to-day life. If you need a little jump start, here are some simple ideas.
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Talk to your kids about what it means to be fully seen and loved.
See if they can name some people or places that allow them to be as silly, sad, happy, or quiet as they want to be.
Help them make a card for one or some of the people you named together. (If you’re feeling extra creative, jump in on the fun and make some of your own.)