To love my children is to love me doubly.
As a child, I had mistakenly thought that my mom didn't really love me, or that she loved me less. As I got older, I realized that she was just communicating love in different ways, when I was expecting her to show me love in another way. Reading the book about the "Five Love Languages" has really enlightened me. The principle, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood", from the book, "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", really rings true. Now that I understand my mom better, she has come to understand me, too.
The ways she has demonstrated her love to me in my adult years have been very powerful and moving. I started realizing this when she kept an open door and still supported me emotionally and spiritually as I struggled through a difficult marriage. She did not shut me out, neither did she pressure me to do anything to improve my situation. She simply "was there" for me through prayer and offered her support in any way she can without judging me. Yes--without judging me. I shall forever hold that dearly.
It has been six years since that chapter of my life had ended, and now comes a new chapter. I think it's a more challenging one, actually. I am currently living away from my children, but my mom is diligently, dutifully, and lovingly taking care of them, by God's grace. She calls and treats them as her very own--and that speaks to me even more powerfully. I do not feel jealous one bit that she loves them so much that she even claims that they are her children. I am honored that she thinks that way, and I feel even more blessed that my children give her the love that she deserves--the love that I should have given her but didn't.
While my mom is loving me doubly by loving my children like her very own, I am extremely happy that she is receiving twice as much love from two of my boys in return.
With this, I can say that I truly have no regrets about having children at an early age, while my mom is still blessed with good health and a sound mind. I want her to enjoy having grandchildren while she is able--and I can see how God has already blessed her with that even through my mistake of getting married too soon.
