Reflections on Mother’s Day: Doing What Is Best

Mother’s Day found me entering the care home where we had moved my mother three days before. She greeted me with words I’d heard many times over the last two weeks in the hospital, the rehab center, and now, her new care facility.

“I want to go home. I want to see my kitty.” Why couldn’t my brother let her go home with him, she wondered.

Her message was clear. She didn’t want to be where she was and she didn’t understand why she needed to be there.

My Mother’s Day dilemma

Mother’s Day is a tough day even for the moms who seemingly fit the profile of a Mother’s Day card. None of us feel like the best Mom ever. None of us feel very amazing. All of us simply did the best we could with what we had. In my role reversal with my mother that day in the care home, I realized that’s the song of motherhood.

“When we were children, you had to make decisions we didn’t like but you did them because they were for our best,” I told her. She grumped back. “That’s for sure.”

“Well, now we’re in that same position,” I said. “We know you don’t like this. We don’t like it either. But we’re doing it because it is what is best for you. This is the point of life you are at, and you need more care than what your children are able to give you. We’ll still be here for you. We’re overseeing everything and making sure you are well cared for. It’s not a perfect solution. But we’re doing our best with what we have to work with.”

Life is not completely the way any of us want it to be.

Often, all of us, whether or not we claim motherhood, are called upon to make decisions for others that have to be not for their happiness but for their best interests. That’s tough! We’re torn between pleasing the people we love or doing the right thing. And sometimes, even the ultimate best is not within our power to give. That’s when we have to take a deep breath and trust God’s perception of what is best for the person that we love rather than our own insights.

When I feel like my best decision of the moment is still not, in my mind, good enough, I think of the words from Proverbs 3:5,6:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Prov. 3:5,6 (NASB)

And an earlier verse reminds me to wrap whatever I do with the right mindset:

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.”

Prov. 3:3, NIV

When I choose what is right in God’s perspective rather than I want or what I think others want, I discover later, that doing the right thing really did bring far more core satisfaction.

After all, the very definition of biblical love is making the choice to do what is best for the other person.