Passing On Motherly Compassion To Your Daughter

One of my very favourite memories of my mother was the way she treated my sisters and I when we got sick as children.

At the first sign of a fever or illness, my mother would go straight to my room, tidy it all up (which sometimes took quite a while 🙂 ), and set up an entire display on my bedside table. The contents always included a potplant, a jug of juice, a thermometer, lozengers, and some other little treat to cheer me up.

Within a couple of hours, fresh, hot chicken soup would be delivered on a tray, as I was accompanied by mother talking with me and making me feel as though I was the most well cared for and loved person on the planet.

Her compassion and love warmed my heart, and I’m certain was the result of confidence and security that has lasted well into my adult years. Even in the midst of a very trying and abusive upbringing, it was moments such as these which my mother invested into me that served as anchors in my heart that I was unconditionally loved.

A Memory of Motherly Compassion

God ordained for this kind of experience to be one of the last that I would ever go through with my mother. In His wisdom, He clearly desired that one of the traits that I would carry with me throughout my life, and motherhood, would be the example of my mother’s compassion and comfort towards my own family members.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a work in progress, however, this great heritage from my precious mother has been embedded in my heart.

You see, when most folks were celebrating while welcoming the new millennium on the last day of 1999, I was at home with a dangerously high fever. For an entire week, I could barely move as my body fought a violent enfluenza. My husband had to work, which left me alone and helpless at home.

But my sweet mother would come in every single day to our apartment, prepare some food for me, carry me to the shower, change my sheets, and sit stroking my hair. I was 26 years old, but her mother heart of love still brought her to care for me when I needed her so much.

Three short months later, one of my sisters and my mother were instantly killed in a car accident.

A Present Day Opportunity for Motherly Compassion

My mind has wondered to this memory today, because now I am a mother who is at the bedside of my own daughter in a hospital room in Dunedin, New Zealand. I am the one now who has the opportunity and privilege to show the same compassion, care, and love to my own daughter. And more than anything over the past couple of days I have felt the heart of grace that my mother must have felt towards me and been vividly reminded of her care and investment in my life in this way.

I asked my daughter, Avielle, how she felt my mother heart during this illness, and wanted to share her perspective with you. Even though I was not aware that she noticed my doing these, they have had an impact on her and been etched in her spirit.

These are her words:

• Reading the Bible together so that I would be encouraged.
• Helping me to the bathroom.
• Praying with me.
• Holding my hand when I was having a blood test, even though it was all sweaty.
• Even just being here, sleeping with me in my room on an uncomfortable couch bed.

Our children certainly feel that pulse of love flowing from our hearts, even when we as mothers aren’t even aware we are doing these acts, or that they are noticed.

Passing On Motherly Compassion To Your Daughter

My purpose in writing this post, my friend, is not to give you a 3 step plan in how to be more kind and sweet to your children, or to advise on 5 items to place beside your children’s bed when they are unwell.

Dear Mama, my desire is to convey to you that the beautiful ways in which you show love and tenderness to your children will be remembered. Tweet that

Even long after you are gone, no act of compassion, no effort to show love will be forgotten. Invest all the love, gentleness and sweetness that you possibly can into your daughters, because every time you do, you are sowing seeds of God’s character into their lives, and building on a heritage that will be embedded in their minds and hearts forever.

And let us not grow weary of doing good,

for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

To God be the Glory!

Have you been intentional in passing on motherly compassion to your daughter? How can you implement this desire and invest into her in this way?

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Photo credit: Billy Wilson Photography via photopin cc