The Way We Shine

“The moon taught me you do not have to be whole in order to shine.” That’s a quote I read once, some random bit of significance floating around the World Wide Web with no author, and I am here to tell you that it isn’t true. At least, it isn’t true for me. The moon never taught me that - my mother did.

The woman that raised me spent her entire life feeling a little less than complete. A little less than worthy. To be honest, she probably still feels that way to this day. My mother was the middle child of three daughters, born to a man who only ever wanted a son, and a mother who never really told anyone what she wanted. Her story began without the acceptance and security that every child deserves. To be fair, my grandparents did the best they knew how to do. I know that just because others don’t love us the way we need them to, doesn’t mean they are not giving us all the love they have to give. Still, it makes it hard to learn how to be a good parent without having first been raised by one, and yet somehow, my mother figured it out. She figured it out on my brother and me. Though this woman never received the love she had been searching for, she was determined to give it to us, and boy did she ever.

Now, no mother is perfect and old wounds run deep. “Hurt people hurt people,” as Sandra Wilson says. You might have to read that really slow to understand it, but the point is my momma still made her mistakes, as all humans will. That said, she gave loving us with every fiber of her being her greatest effort in life. She never felt secure, but she made sure we did. She never felt worthy, so she made sure we knew our worth to her. As a mother myself, now I can look back and honestly say there’s nothing on this planet that has ever mattered more to anyone than us kids mattered to my momma. (Except, maybe her grandkids now.)

When we needed her, she was there. Even when it scared her to death, and that was often. But even still, sometimes she lost herself along the way. Those were the times she thought she had failed us. In reality? Those were the times she was the mother we needed the most.

You see, she didn’t know at the time, (and of course as children neither did we) just how valuable her raw emotions were and all the things they would teach us. She was the mother who cracked a little and let the weight of the world pull her down. The woman who often let people take advantage of her spirit, that gave and gave and gave. The mother that sometimes let the guilt and the fear creep in, and lashed out or gave in or cried over all the pain she would never articulate. But we saw. We knew. And now I see she was exactly what I needed: broken.

I learned it was okay to crack; to take a hit and keep on rolling. Now it’s harder for life to break me. I learned the world IS heavy and life, even a beautiful one, IS hard, so when it was my turn to carry the weight there was no disillusionment to set me up for failure. I learned how to give with all of my heart, but I also learned how to choose who was worth giving my heart to.

The mother she was would never be the mother she wanted to be, and of that fact she was ashamed. But I know how much I loved and needed the real her anyway. She taught me to be real. That everyone has doubts and fears and sin and guilt, but none of these struggles define us. No amount of brokenness changes how valuable we are; how necessary we are for someone else. Our flaws will never dim our shine, because our lights have nothing to do with how hard we try, how often we fail, how happy we act or how good our lives look from the outside. All we have to do to shine is love. And shine she did, even when (or especially when) she did not know she was.