Mom's Mindfulness

When I was a young girl, I observed a simple plaque on my mother’s bedroom wall that read “In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.” I wondered what it meant. There were times when my mother would quietly slip away to her room and shut the door. I knew she couldn’t be taking a nap because she wasn’t in there long enough for that. I knew she wasn’t on the phone because, being the nosey kid that I was, I listened at the door. As I watched her come back out and go about her day, I wondered what she’d been doing in there. One day I learned what her mysterious trips to her room were all about. I had come home from school and was extremely upset about having failed something due to my dyslexia. Kids had laughed at me and called me a dummy. It happened often. In my mother’s wisdom, she acknowledged this was cruel and hurtful. After tears and hugs she took me into her room and read the plaque to me. Her gentle words were so comforting. She told me, “There are times in our lives when we will be hurt and disappointed by the unkindness of other people. There are lots of things we cannot control in life, like peoples’ behaviors, the weather, or unmet expectations. However, there is one thing we can control and that is how we handle and respond to hurtful things.” She pointed to the plaque on the wall and said, “God loves us and wants to help us through our difficulties. He teaches us to talk and quietly listen to Him. Through quietness He calms us.” He says, ‘In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.’” She explained her pattern to me. When she was hurting, frustrated or upset, even tempted to speak in anger or react in a hurtful way, she would come to her room and get still. Sometimes she’d have a good cry. She told me, “The wonderful thing is we can talk to God all about the situation and ask Him to help.” With sparkling eyes, she looked into my face and took my hands and said, “It is amazing how getting quiet and turning to God for comfort settles us down, and strengthens us as we sense peace, courage, and confidence.” Today, people may call this mindfulness, or meditation. But the key is to face our difficulty head on and get quiet with God, let go, and allow Him to heal. He is faithful, and He will do it.