Sunday, May 11, 2014

Heeding the Words of Our Mothers by Chloe Lucas

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”