Mother's Day 2014

Recently I made a new friend.  One day she asked me, “You seem to be able to see the best in people.  Why?”  The answer came instantly and even startled me a little as it came out of my mouth. “My mother,” I said.  “My mother taught me how to see people.”  My mother is not perfect, but there are parts of her that are close.  This is one of them.

I grew up in a rural farming community.  I had a wonderful childhood.  Even as a child, however, I noticed that some families in our community seemed a little different from the majority of the farm families around us.  They didn’t fit in as easily as more typical families did.  But I noticed that they “fit in” with our family.  Their children were invited to our home and became our playmates and we went to their homes.  I remember overhearing my mother on the telephone with a mother from one of these families.  My mother was calling her “Kid”, (mom’s pet name for her good friends) and laughing, truly enjoying the conversation with this woman toward whom some other mothers were less friendly.  I noted that in my home, every person was valued.  You didn’t have to be witty or smart or exceptionally talented.  You could even have annoying quirks or a dirty face or tell bad jokes.  Your value simply “was”.  You didn’t have to earn it with my mother.

I find myself looking at people the way my mother did, using what I call “Christ’s light”. I picture a lantern powered by the love of the Savior.  When I look at someone I try to hold this lantern up and look at them using this love-powered light. Under its glow the things about others that seem different or weak fade into shadow and the things about them that are eternal and beautiful shine.  Everyone has value.  Everyone has beauty.  You don’t have to earn it.  It just “is”. This is one of the great legacies handed down to me from my mother, Arva Merrill Burton.

What about you?  What legacies are yours because of mothers or mother figures in your life?