Mary and Moms

Recently I had one of those days when I didn’t feel like I was very good company for anyone.  We all have those days as mothers.  The thoughts of inadequacy and doubt fill our minds and spin like a hamster wheel.  It was a day that I didn’t want to be alone either though, because honestly I wasn’t good company even for myself. 

So, I started out on a walk and began praying my “walking rosary”.  This is when I walk and pray the rosary a decade at a time counting on the simplest of rosary “beads”…my fingers.  With each decade I think of the specific needs of each one of my family members and offer them up to God with Mary.  Now, I know that God has heard me and my requests a million times, but I feel different bringing them to Mary first…like a child who wants to tell their parent something.  When the child has company in the telling, she or he is more comfortable or confident about the information. 

As I started walking and praying,  I started to wonder about Mary’s “mothering”.  I thought about how Mary must have had some of the same concerns I had.  When Jesus was little, she must have wondered if she was giving Him everything He needed physically, intellectually and spiritually. When my girls were young, I was always trying to balance making healthy meals, instilling in them a love of reading, and aiding in their faith journeys.   

When Jesus started His ministry when he was 33, Mary must have wondered if there was any more support she should’ve given Him.  Was He as prepared as she could’ve helped Him to be?    Was it hard for her to “let go”?  My girls will soon be starting out on new adventures as they have accepted jobs in different states.  I’m excited for them and only hope that I’ve done everything I could to prepare them as they launch on these journeys. 

When Mary held Jesus in her arms at the end of his life, she must have wondered if she could’ve done more.  At the end of every day when the girls were little, I used to tuck them in and wonder this.  Did I do everything God wanted me to do that day to ensure that my little one’s life is on the right path?

These were the thoughts swirling through my head during my “walking rosary” and then I had such a strong urge to pray for my own mother.  I texted her right away and told her I loved her.  Later she texted back and told me she had been at church at the time and that it was the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary!  I was filled with gratitude for my own mother, who has always been an inspiration for me with her own devotion to Jesus’ mother.   

 Another title Mary has is “Our Lady Undoer of Knots”. What a cool image to hang onto in the most difficult moments of mothering: Our Lady can help us to un-do the “knots” in our lives that we can’t seem to un-do by on our own.  These are the things we try so hard to take care of ourselves but the harder we try, the worse they become. I think of the times the girls used to bring their necklaces to me to untangle.  Sometimes the harder I tried, the worse the knot would become.  Truth be told, when all else failed, the girls knew that Daddy could always get those worse knots out.  The same is true with the knots in our lives. When we give them over to God, our father, with Mary we feel a burden lifted.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is to step back from those knots and let God do the work. It can be messy but it is truly in faith that we can “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5) and say, “I trust you, God.”  Then we can bring our thoughts back to gratitude.  When Paul spoke to the Romans, he said, “For although they knew God they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”  (Romans 1:21)  When I feel like my thoughts are futile and my heart is growing dark, I just need to turn back to a spirit of gratitude and know that God is in control.  Mary modeled this perfectly shortly after receiving the news that she would be the mother of the Lord:   “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” (Luke 1:46 -47)   She traded in any feelings of fear or doubt for gratitude and trust.  That must be her secret to “undoing” the knots.

I felt uplifted as I returned home from my “walking rosary”.  As it turned out, even though I didn’t feel like I was very good company for anyone, Mary turned out to be a good companion.  I do believe she is the very best companion for mothers every day.   

Feel free to share a time when you needed Mary the Undoer of Knots.