Heeding the
Words of our Mothers
By Chloe
Lucas
Last
Sunday before meetings started Bro Jones took me aside and asked me to speak
today on Mother’s Day. No doubt he was
still dazzled by my Mother’s Day talk two years ago—or, he was willing to give
me another chance.
He
said the topic was “Heeding the Words of our Mothers” I
thought “you are joking, right…I’m 14”.
I glanced at my mother who seemed to be oblivious to what was going on. “Hmmm”, my thoughts continued. “Did you think of this yourself or did my
mother call you?” Everyone seemed a
little too innocent.
“Sure”
I said. “Okay, great. Just a 5-7 minute talk” he said. 5-7 minutes? I know from listening to my
mom’s stories of “when I was your age” that kids gave talks in sacrament
meeting called Sacrament Gems and they were just 2 minutes long. So be prepared for a 5-7 minute presentation
of some crown jewels.
This is a lot of pressure giving a talk on
Mother’s Day when your mom is in the congregation. Especially when you don’t see eye to eye with
your mom. I bet my mom’s kinda nervous
today. Hi mom. We got mom some flowers for mother’s
day. We stopped asking her years ago
what she wanted as a gift because it was
always the same thing…”All I want is obedient children” -----Flowers are way easier.
Hmmmm.
(tap podium ) “Heeding the words of our mothers” assigning this topic to
someone my age might be unconstitutional as I cannot be compelled to testify
against myself. I could change the topic
slightly to fit my experience.
Brothers and sisters today Im going to
speaking on “Rationalizing why we DO NOT need to heed our mothers” Not really
Man
this is hard for me. “Heeding the words
of our mothers” I got nothin’! Most of
the time I think my mom just doesn’t get it.
All I hear from her is:
Is your room clean?
Be nice to Ann
Pick up after yourself
And Have you: done your chores, fed the animals,
folded your clothes and practiced your piano?
I
always wish she’d ask me if I’ve: Checked my facebook, watched TV and left my
shoes in the front room. Then I could
say “yes, mother dear’
Honestly
one time she went away for some training and she made a lifesized cardboard cut
out with a looped recording and we didn’t know she was really gone until all
the food was gone!
Well,
coming up short on some good solid reasons why we should listens to our moms I,
IRONICALLY, turned to my mother for
help.
“oh
Mom” I came up to her. She looked at me
and said “Is your room clean?” I ignored her.
“Mom, why are we supposed to heed the words of our mother?”
She
said, “Listening to your mom (and dad) is just practice for listening to the
Holy Ghost and practice for being obedient to HF when you are older and on your
own” she continued “If you can’t be obedient to your mom when she is right in
the house with you how can you expect to be obedient to HF when you can’t even
see him? It’s practice for being obedient”
“OOOHH”
I said…as my understanding started to grow.
Then
she said “Did you practice your piano?”
I walked away deep in thought
So,
it’s not just about being able to see the carpet in my room---it’s learning to
be obedient” This deeper meaning got to
be too much for me and I had to think of something else.
The
truth is my mom says I am a lot like her when she was my age and that’s why
it’s hard for us to get along now. It
feels like she wants me to be perfect and so sometimes I don’t even want to try
because I know I will fall short. We
have talked about this and mom said she wants me to be better than she was and
be happier.
She
wants me to be happy? All this time I
thought she wanted me to be miserable and was just thinking of ways to torture
me! I guess our moms have the big
picture in mind and know that what we do today will affect us later.
I
can see that myself with Casey, my little brother. I am 7 years older than Casey. And he, being the baby of the family, gets a lot more help than Justin and I
did. And I’m worried that he won’t turn
out well if he doesn’t snap to and start doing things for himself. Gasp….mom might think that about me!
So
now I’m realizing that our moms really do have our backs and they are looking
out for us not just today but in years to come.
And if we listen to our mothers and then follow through (that’s what heed means…it’s not just
listening and letting the words pass by
it’s paying close attention and hopefully following through ) then, then
we can say like the 2,000 stripling warriors…in Chapter 56 of Alma in the Book
of Mormon
“we do not doubt for our mothers knew it”
Our
mothers drag us to church, take us to mutual, remind us to pray, gather us together to sing hymns and time and
time again come up with ways for us to read scriptures as a family. It’s like Sister Anderson said last week in
her testimony….they are setting the pattern for us.
According
to my mother, moms feel a great responsibility for all parts of their
children’s lives…physically, emotionally and spiritually. They know from their own experiences that if
we learn in our youth to be diligent in these areas that our lives will be so
much easier for us. Not that life will
be easy but EASIER. If we learn to be
obedient to laws that govern us physically, emotionally and spiritually we will
be happier. They want to help us with
that…our moms want us ultimately to be happy…just like Heavenly Father and his
great plan of HAPPINESS.
This
is all new thought for me and it took me a while to process it. It kinda went against everything I felt about
my mom. I complain a lot about how she
does things and when I really get going she has me write down all her short
comings so I can l be a better mom. The
list is long. She said she has a long
list too about her mom and as long as my list was shorter than she is a
success.
Maybe
the best reason for us to heed the words of our mothers is because they love
us. No one on earth loves us like our
mothers do. It’s
hard to admit it sometimes especially when she wants me to do things I don’t
want to do…but I know our mothers really
love us and are willing to sacrifice being “friends” now so that we can be
happier later.
So
it’s clear to me now. if I listen to my
mom now then I will be more able to listen to the Holy Ghost and HF and be
happier . So her idea of having obedient
kids for mother’s day was really a gift for me.
I’m still having trouble equating a made bed
with eternal happiness but I guess faith has to kick in somewhere.
“we do not doubt for our mothers knew it”