Are You My Mother?

Not too long ago, I found myself visiting with an old friend from an era that felt like forever ago, yet seemed unresolved. As we talked about old times I started to see those old times from an adult perspective.  Some of those were really rough old times.

My memory took me back to my first year of college and the misfit feeling of being the only one of my friends from a divorced home.  Whispers.  ”Bless her heart…”  I could only fit into these families at the expense of myself.  At the time, I was willing to spend it all.

This wasn’t the only time I found myself being punished for being lost.  I could rattle off many, many more stories of searching for my perfect fit.  Enough so, that as I was reflecting my heart came to a stand still.  I was completely taken back by the drastic difference of the traveling girl I once was to the solid woman I am today.  When did I change so dramatically?

“Fix me.”  At some point, I requested from God.

His reply came with a visual of a picture book, not surprising considering I love them so very much.

A picture book that illustrates perfectly the relationship I have always had with Him.

A baby chick hatches looking for his mother.  As you turn each page, you see the chick asking things and people who don’t resemble him in the least – simply, “are you my mother?”

The things and people tell the chick exactly why they could not possibly be related, leaving the chick as a misfit with each turn of the page.

As the pages turn, the isolation and obvious differences sadden the chick.  As the reader, you cannot help but want to rewrite the story and make some of these things and people want to adopt the chick and embrace the similarities, but you can’t cause you are not the author.

But a greater relief is to come – see, at the end of the book the chick is scooped up and loved by a beautiful creature that looks just like him.  A mother that went away for food to feed her young one.  A mother that always had a plan.

I found my resolve the day my Father revealed Himself to me.  That day I realized my real family tree – and the book shut.