Mothers and Troubles

If you have ever felt a panic-stricken emotional arrow to your heart regarding one of your children, you know what I am talking about. Some people call it intuition. Some may say it is a God-given alarm system. It also feels like some kind of special biological connection. Given the nature of mothers to be concerned or to worry, it can be a flase alarm at times.
It starts very young. I remember our daughter having cholic or something that caused her to seem to lose her breath at times. It would often end over the noon hour before the doctor was back in his office. There was a time our son fell and had a momentary black out and cut near his eye and we were uncertain what to do. I know mothers, one at least who may be reading this, that had to watch her son endure many operations early in life, which I can't even imagine. Thankfully, he is doing well now.
Then there is the emotional trauma as they are growing up. We watch our children be rejected by friends and there is no reasonable explanation. After all, aren't our kids the greatest? Watching them suffer as friends tease or ignore them is hard to take. When they are little, we can possibly do some intervention, helping kids go through the motions of apologizing and becoming friends again. But when they start hitting the double digit ages in life, we find that trying to help usually backfires at best. We let them know that we are on their team and help them with any part of the problem to which they may have contributed. We offer them our support and encouragement.
As time goes on, we have to let go - at least in theory:) - more and more. We try to hold tight to what we think is best for them while they are under our roof. As Judge Judy says, "we own their very breath until then". But somewhere along the line, for some sooner rather than later, we cannot do anything but wait and pray - and time sometimes seems interminable while we do that.
We love them so much! Why can't we fix their problems? A good quote from a pastor recently: "On our best day, we can maybe control ourselves pretty well" - something like that. But we keep trying. We can't seem to stop ourselves. As a wise, older friend once said: "You neer stop worrying about your kids". Discouraging somewhat but true. Maybe it's because that is part of what love is all about.