Unconditional Love Of A Mother Quotes

When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.

Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner's love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother's love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.

The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads -none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of - unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn't get enough.

You are evidence of your mother's strength, especially if you are a rebellious knucklehead and regardless she has always maintained her sanity.

I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?

Mother was comfort. Mother was home. A girl who lost her mother was suddenly a tiny boat on an angry ocean. Some boats eventually floated ashore. And some boats, like me, seemed to float farther and farther from land

There is an emptiness inside of me -- a void that will never be filled. No one in your life will ever love you as your mother does. There is no love as pure, unconditional and strong as a mother's love. And I will never be loved that way again.

The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to respect the woman that gave birth to his children. It is because of her that you have the greatest treasures in your life. You may have moved on, but your children have not. If you can’t be her soulmate, then at least be thoughtful. Whom your children love should always be someone that you acknowledge with kindness. Your children notice everything and will follow your example.

In our country we call this type of mother love teng ai. My son has told me that in men's writing it is composed of two characters. The first means pain; the second means love. That is a mother's love.

It's only now that he's been corrupted that I can fully appreciate the real Peeta. Even more than I would've if he'd died. The kindness, the steadiness, the warmth that had an unexpected heat behind it. Outside of Prim, my mother and Gale, how many people in the world love me unconditionally? I think in my case, the answer may be none. Sometimes, when I'm alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena. To make myself put a name to the thing I've lost. But what's the use? It's gone. He's gone. Whatever existed between us is gone. All that's left is my promise to kill Snow. I tell myself this ten times a day.

If I were asked to define Motherhood. I would have defined it as Love in its purest form. Unconditional Love. ~~ Revathi Sankaran

On this Mother's Day and every day before and after, I thank you God for the precious gift of my three children. I love them unconditionally.

I realize it's commonplace for parents to say to their child sternly, 'I love you, but I don't always like you.' But what kind of love is that? It seems to me that comes down to, 'I'm not oblivious to you - that is, you can still hurt my feelings - but I can't stand having you around.' Who wants to be loved like that? Given a choice, I might skip the deep blood tie and settle for being liked. I wonder if wouldn't have been more moved if my own mother had taken me in her arms and said, 'I like you.' I wonder if just enjoying your kid's company isn't more important.

As she spoke, I wanted to cry, because sometimes it's just so damn hard to be a mother. We have to wait and wait and wait for our children to open their hearts to us. And if that doesn't work, we have to bide our time and look for the moment of weakness when we can sneak back into their lives and they will see us and remember us for the people who love them unconditionally.

There is an emptiness inside of me- a void that will never be filled. No one in your life will ever love you as your mother does. There is no love as pure, unconditional and strong as a mother's love. And I will never be loved that way again.

Your mother is risking a lot, because she believes in you.

She sacrifices her dream to make my dream come true.

A mother's love is instinctual, unconditional, and forever.

Giving birth does not make you a mother. Being there daily in good times and bad to provide, care, comfort, teach, sing, feed, clothe, encourage, discipline, clean, hug, pray, listen, cry, experience, protect, kiss, read, advocate, bandage, educate, coach, cheer, laugh, play and love unconditionally...well, that's a mother.

What was unspoken between us, what need never be explained or said, was that nobody would ever love us again like our mothers did. Yes, we would be loved, by our fathers, our friends, our siblings, our aunts and uncles and grandparents and spouses--and our children if we chose to have them--but never would we experience that kind of unconditional, nothing-you-can-do-will-turn-me-away-from-you kind of mother love.

I've always found animals easy to love because their love is unconditional. They are trusting, loyal and undemanding except in wanting love in return.

Emotional incest is yet another form of emotional abuse. Emotional incest commonly involves the reversal of the parent/child roles. When this occurs, the mother or father "parentifies" the child who is then manipulated to gratify the unmet childhood needs of the parent. This typically manifests as the parent pumping the child for the unconditional love that she should herself be giving.

There’s a wound most troubled boys share, which, at its core, comes from the feeling that they don’t have their father’s unconditional love.

The bond between a mother and daughter is sacred. You know better than anyone that no matter how awful they are, we still find it in our hearts to love them.

A mother loves her children unconditionally. However they wrong her, she'll carry on loving them.

My mother used to tell me, “I chose to have you because I wanted something to love and something that would love me unconditionally in return—and then I gave birth to the most selfish piece of shit on earth and all it ever did was cry and eat and shit and say, ‘Me, me, me, me me.’ 

There is no such thing as unconditional love," my mother told me. "I could stop loving you at any time.

Being a mother isn’t an easy task. It has its ups and downs, joy and difficult moments. I wish more children could see that a mother’s love should never be undervalued. A mother’s love is priceless and unconditional without asking for anything in return except for appreciation, respect, gratitude, and for them to do well in school.

We all intuitively know that a mother's love is crucial to the creation of a well-adjusted human and that we are all born with an instinctive expectation of receiving unconditionally selfless love from our mother.

Mothers were meant to love us unconditionally, to understand our moments of stupidity, to reprimand us for lame excuses while yet acknowledging our point of view, to weep over our pain and failures as well as cry at our joy and successes, and to cheer us on despite countless start-overs. Heaven knows no one else will.

Mother's love created our awe-inspiring moral sense

She sacrifices her dreams to make my dream come true.

It was easy to believe that a mother’s love was unconditional, which made it alright to challenge her, correct her, laugh at her. Fathers were more complicated. Their love, once earned, had to be sustained. It had to be sheltered from the glare of truth.

Courage and strength moves like the steadfast waves of the ocean. Ebbs and flows, highs and lows, loud and soft, firm and vulnerable, passing encouragement from one generation to the next.

She suddenly felt sorry for these people, for perverting the food of their childhood, the food of their mothers and grandmothers, and rejecting its unconditional love in favor of what? What? Pat did not understand.

A mother should always love their children unconditionally.  It should be as natural as breathing – the love a mother has for her child.

The narcissistic mother cannot give her child unconditional love. She’s not capable of being self-less, devoted, warm, mature, or attentive to you. Instead, everything is about her. Life revolves around meeting her unrealistic, immature needs. She expects your undivided attention. Your admiration. Your praises. Your loyalty to her. She demands you to meet her needs no matter how ridiculous they can be.

We walk all over the earth but it never complains of being a doormat. So we give it the highest title of love, adoration and family: praising it for mothering every species and the whole of all humanity.

What does Christian know about love? Seems he didn’t get the unconditional love he was entitled to during his very early years. My heart twists, and my mother’s words waft like a zephyr through my mind: Yes, Ana. Hell, what do you need? A neon sign flashing on his forehead? She thinks Christian loves me, but then she’s my mother, of course she’d think that. She thinks I deserve the best of everything. I frown. It’s true, and in a moment of startling clarity, I see it. It’s very simple; I want his love. I need Christian Grey to love me. This is why I am so reticent about our relationship – because on some basic, fundamental level, I recognize within me a deep-seated compulsion to be loved and cherished.

Love does exist, but unconditionality remains only in a mother's embrace.

My mother used to tell me, “I chose to have you because I wanted something to love and something that would love me unconditionally in return.” I was a product of her search for belonging.

This is what I came up with: My mother is not only presenting me an opportunity to love unconditionally, she’s also allowing me to practice being comfortable with what is uncomfortable. To grieve and also embrace what is broken. To know that some days I can receive who my mother is now and some days I struggle with it. To allow that two opposing thoughts may exist in my head at the same time.

Even before i had children, I knew that being a parent was going to be challenging as well as rewarding. But I didn't really know. I didn't know how exhausted it was possible to become, or how clueless it was possible to feel, or how, each time I reached the end of my rope, I would somehow have to find more rope. I didn't understand that sometimes when your kids scream so loudly that the neighbors are ready to call the Department of Child Services, it's because you've served the wrong shape of pasta for dinner. I didn't realize that those deep-breathing exercises mothers are taught in natural-childbirth class dont really start to pay off until long after the child is out. I couldn't have predicted how relieved I'd be to learn that other peoples children struggle with the same issues, and act in some of the same ways, mine do. (Even more liberating is the recognition that other parents, too, have dark moments when they catch themselves not liking their own child, or wondering whether it's all worth it, or entertaining various other unspeakable thoughts). The bottom line is that raising kids is not for whimps.

My mother used to tell me, "I chose to have you because I wanted something to love and something that would love me unconditionally in return-and then I give birth to the most selfish piece of shit on earth and all it ever did was cry and eat and shit and say, 'Me, me, me, me me.

When you grow up as I have, a lost girl without any real past, you latch on to the people who seem to love you. At least that’s what I did. It started early, my holding on too tightly and needing too much. I always craved love. The unconditional, even unearned kind. I needed someone to say it to me. Not to sound poor me, but my mother never said it.

God’s love for us is everlasting. That means that God’s love for us existed before we were born and will exist after we have died. It is an eternal love in which we are embraced. Living a spiritual life calls us to claim that eternal love for ourselves so that we can live our temporal loves – for parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends, spouses, and all people who become part of our lives – as reflections or refractions of God’s eternal love. No fathers or mothers can love their children perfectly. No husbands or wives can love each other with unlimited love. There is no human love that is not broken somewhere. When our broken love is the only love we can have, we are easily thrown into despair, but when we can live our broken love as a partial reflection of God’s perfect, unconditional love, we can forgive one another our limitations and enjoy together the love we have to offer.

If you’ve ever really loved anybody, then you know what true love means. It means that you love them more than you love yourself. If you truly love someone, your love sees past their humanness. It embraces their whole being, including past wrongs and current shortcomings. It is like the unconditional love of a mother. A mother devotes every moment of her life to a child who is physically or mentally challenged. She thinks the child is beautiful. She doesn’t focus on the shortcomings; in fact, she doesn’t even see them as shortcomings. What if that is how God looks upon His creation? Then you’ve lost out if you’ve been told otherwise. Instead of being encouraged to feel completely protected, loved, honored, and respected by the Divine Force, you’ve been taught that you’re being judged. Because you’ve been taught that, you feel guilt and fear. But guilt and fear do not open your connection to the Divine; they only serve to close your heart.

When you find love, you hold on hard. It’s a fragile little thing, and once it’s gone, it leaves a hole and memories, we all know that. Ones you wish you could relive, but from every love, you learn something. Something important. From my mother, I learned to be strong. From my father, I learned to embrace pain. From Rich, I learned to love while it lasts and that endings aren’t always a bad thing. From my Vipers, I learned love is unconditional and can come at the strangest of times and places. And from myself? I learned it’s okay to love yourself. Even the darkest parts of you. No matter the shape, size, or weirdness you came with. Embrace your scars and never be ashamed to be who you are, because there is only one of you. And if you don’t love you, how can anyone else? I am imperfectly perfect. I am a lover and a fighter. I am strong and weak. I can be cruel and a killer, but also kind and a healer. I am all of those things, and loving my weaknesses means I can embrace my strengths and be just whom I want to be.

Always, always, always love your mother. No one else will ever love you like she does.

We are our ancestors. The spiritual umbilicus is apparent to all. The dead look upon us with the pure love of a mother’s gaze. But the dead love is even more because of our flawed flesh and eternal confusion. The removal from form allows for total and complete unconditional love. We carry our dead with us like helium balloons. There is no breaking the umbilicus.

From early childhood, I had been told how smart I was, and throughout my life various people had tried so hard to teach me everything there was to know. But it occurred to me then how negligent they had been in teaching me how to love. I had two example of love in life - my mother's, absolute and over- burdened, the trial of love; and my father's, the cold and ambitious pursuit of meaning in love, the desire to turn it into a product with a worth that could be measured. Of the two options, I had skewed towards the former, disappointed with my father's method, and so I had bestowed a sort of unconditional love on Carly without really understanding what it meant. I wished that just one person had taught me a way to love her less. If I had loved her less, maybe I wouldn't have hated her so much. And maybe then I could have forgiven her.

People always tried to exchange romantic love for unconditional love, as though the two were interchangeable. But there was a significant difference. Conditional love was fickle. Often it fizzled and stalled, burning out so quickly that Tamsin hardly got more than a handful of uses from it. A mother’s love for her child, however, could last her several months if she rationed it carefully.

I used to believe in so many things—elves and leprechauns, virgins riding unicorns. I trusted that the world was made up of people who were generally good, though they may have lost their way temporarily. The faith my mother gave me—the words she whispered when she said good night, the idea that gave me hope for the two of us even when we fought bitterly over trivial things, as mothers and daughters do, I guess—was her belief in love, a love so unconditional we could barely scratch at the edges of comprehending it.

I am a wife, mother, and friend, and soon to be grandmother, I still feel, understand, and am worthy of the love and joy in those relationships. I am still an active participant in society. My brain no longer works well, but I use my ears for unconditional listening, my shoulders for crying on, and my arms for hugging others with dementia. Through an early stage support group...by talking to you today, I am helping others with dementia live better with dementia. I am not someone dying. I am someone living with Alzheimer's. I want to do that as well as I possibly can.

because sometimes it’s just so damn hard to be a mother. We have to wait and wait and wait for our children to open their hearts to us. And if that doesn’t work, we have to bide our time and look for the moment of weakness when we can sneak back into their lives and they will see us and remember us for the people who love them unconditionally.

We are now, I believe, on the threshold of a third stage which I call the stage of the sacred marriage. This is the only position we could possibly take and still survive. This is a stage beyond both matriarchy and patriarchy. It involves the restoration to human respect of all of the rejected powers of the feminine. But it is absolutely essential that this restoration should be accomplished in the deep spirit of the sacred feminine. Not only should we invoke the sacred feminine, restore the sacred feminine, but this union between the matriarchal and the patriarchal, the sacred marriage, must be accomplished in the spirit of the sacred feminine for it to be real, effective, rich, and fecund. It must occur in her spirit of unconditional love, in her spirit of tolerance, forgiveness, all-embracing and all-harmonizing balance, and not, in any sense, involve a swing in the other direction.

He didn’t see any of his siblings on the way out, and he didn’t think it was because it was late. His mother was quiet for once, no reassurances, not even her usual expressions of unconditional love as she walked them to the door. He felt her gaze on him as Josh led him to the car, but he didn’t look back. He couldn’t. He felt if he tried, he’d freeze, trapped forever between what he’d been and what he was, forever longing for something that no longer existed.

How can someone who's stood by you your whole life – who helped you empty the contents of the kitchen bin onto the floor when you were seventeen because you accidentally threw away a piece of hash the size of a cocoa nib, or who accompanied you, when she was eighty years old, to the Southbank Cinema on Mother's Day to watch hardcore gay and lesbian sex films because no one else would go with you (ditto a Sparks concert at the Royal Festival Hall) – how can that person, who you've been through so much with and who is now lying in front of you with snow-white hair, pale-grey eyes, soft pink skin and worry lines, not be beautiful?

To the one and only Alex Jenkins Reid: Thank you for understanding why this book was so important to me and for being so into it. But more important, thank you for being the kind of man who encourages me to shout louder, dream bigger, and take less shit. Thank you for never making me feel as if I should make myself smaller to make anyone else feel better. It brings me an absolutely unparalleled amount of pride and joy to know that our daughter is growing up with a father who will stick by her side no matter who she is, who will show her how she should expect to be treated by modeling it for her. Evelyn did not have that. I did not have that. But she will. Because of you. And lastly, to my baby girl. You were teeny teeny tiny—I believe the size of half the period on the end of this sentence—when I started writing this book. And when I finished it, you were mere days away from making your entrance. You were with me every step of the way. I suspect it was, in no small part, you who gave me the strength to write it. I promise that I will repay the favor by loving you unconditionally and accepting you always, so that you feel strong enough and safe enough to do anything you set your mind to. Evelyn would want that for you. She would say, “Lilah, go out there, be kind, and grab what you want out of this world with both hands.” Well, she might not have put as big an emphasis on being kind. But as your mother, I must insist.

If you neglect your fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, and wives, then don't be surprised when the Creator is forced to neglect you. Neglect, and you will be neglected. Protect, and you will be protected. Reject, and you will be rejected. Love all, and all that love will be mirrored by the Creator and reflected back onto YOU.

A man may be shocked when he sees you've really changed. He thought you'd been scribbling in your journal —a sentimental, little Victorian girl writing in your little book, naive and uninitiated. Suddenly, when you say, Look, this is what I think, he can't believe what's coming out of your mouth. Mother puts up with anything. Mother is unconditional love. When you say, See me as I am, you are no longer mother, no longer his ideal woman. You've changed. He thought you'd been scribbling in your journal.

Please tell me the truth about yourself.

Every morning I wake up to perform my one and only character. A Rising Phoenix in spite of it all.

And he will love them unconditionally . . . if he can just get past the girls he chose to be their mothers.

My mother used to tell me that there are many kinds of love. Unconditional love, self-love, love for your family, love for your friends…romantic love.

Love is about control and loss of control. In love, we give ourselves up to each other. We lose control or, rather, we cede control to another, trusting in a way we would never otherwise trust, letting the other person hold the deepest part of our being in their hands, with the capacity to hurt it mortally. This cession of control is a deeply terrifying thing, which is why we crave it and are drawn to it like moths to the flame, and why we have to trust it unconditionally. In love, so many hazardous uncertainties in life are resolved: the constant negotiation with other souls, the fear and distrust that lie behind almost every interaction, the petty loneliness that we learned to live with as soon as we grew apart from our mother’s breast. We lose all this in the arms of another. We come home at last to a primal security, made manifest by each other’s nakedness… And with that loss of control comes mutual power, the power to calm, the power to redeem, and the power to hurt.

His Consciousness To Glorious Wisdom of Love To the Profound Heart Sound To Great Awareness of the enlightened few To Limitless Space of Compassion To Alertness of Bliss and Emptiness To the Mind riding on the wind of Light To Amitaba and Amideva To Milarepa and Baba Ji To you my Father and Mother Whose Merge brought me here To experience The Diamond Being Within the Primordial Consciousness of One

If you truly love someone, your love sees past their humanness. It embraces their whole being, including past wrongs and current shortcomings. It is like the unconditional love of a mother. A mother devotes every moment of her life to a child who is physically or mentally challenged. She thinks the child is beautiful. She doesn’t focus on the shortcomings; in fact, she doesn’t even see them as shortcomings.

A mother loves her children unconditionally and without boundaries. She knows when they are hurt, she knows when they are happy and she knows when they are sad. She knows this without any words being spoken.

During World War II, a few years after Norma Jeane’s time in an orphanage, thousands of children were evacuated from the air raids and poor rations of London during the Blitz, and placed with volunteer families or group homes in the English countryside or even in other countries. It was only postwar studies comparing these children to others left behind that opened the eyes of many experts to the damage caused by emotional neglect. In spite of living in bombed-out ruins and constant fear of attack, the children who had been left with their mothers and families tended to fare better than those who had been evacuated to physical safety. Emotional security, continuity, a sense of being loved unconditionally for oneself—all those turn out to be as important to a child’s development as all but the most basic food and shelter.

I feel no pressure to stop crying. I feel no need to explain myself. You don't have to make yourself OK for a good mother; a good mother makes herself OK for you. And my mother as always been a good mother, a great mother.

The child opened her beak even wider, and the stork let out a moan. “It really wouldn’t hurt you to take an interest in others,” she said. “I tell you I’m depressed, I tell you I feel cornered and lonely, and your response is ‘Fine. Now feed me,’ which is actually very insensitive of you. All mothers feel unconditional love for their children, but there’s a timer on it, all right. It doesn’t last forever, especially when you’re selfish.” The child closed her beak.

When people thought of mothers, they smelled cookies baking and chocolate melting. But actual mothers got shit for giving their kids too much sugar. When people thought of mothers, they thought soft and warm and cuddly. But actual mothers went to great lengths to eradicate their soft warm cuddly bits. When people thought of mothers, they thought of mama bears and cheerleaders–fierce love and unconditional support–but actual mothers were accused of coddling and helicoptering.

I am not sure whether you could call this abuse, but when I was (long ago) abroad in the world of dry men, I saw parents, usually upscale and educated and talented and functional and white, patient and loving and supportive and concerned and involved in their children’s lives, profilgate with compliments and diplomatic with constructive criticism, loquacious in their pronouncements of unconditional love for and approval of their children, conforming to every last jot-tittle in any conceivably definition of a good parent, I saw parent after unimpeachable parent who raised kids who were (a) emotionally retarded or (b) lethally self-indulgent or (c) chronically depressed or (d) borderline psychotic or (e) consumed with narcissistic self-loathing or (f) neurotically driven/addicted or (g) variously psychosomatically Disabled or (h) some conjunctive permutation of (a) … (g). Why is this. Why do many parents who seem relentlessly bent on producing children who feel they are good persons deserving of love produce children who grow to feel they are hideous persons not deserving of love who just happen to have lucked into having parents so marvelous that the parents love them even though they are hideous? Is it a sign of abuse if a mother produces a child who believes not that he is innately beautiful and lovable and deserving of magnificent maternal treatment but somehow that he is a hideous unlovable child who has somehow lucked in to having a really magnificent mother? Probably not. But could such a mother then really be all that magnificent, if that’s the child’s view of himself? ...I think, Mrs. Starkly, that I am speaking of Mrs. Avril M.-T. Incandenza, although the woman is so multileveled and indictment-proof that it is difficult to feel comfortable with any sort of univocal accusation of anything. Something just was not right, is the only way to put it. Something creepy, even on the culturally stellar surface.

A child should never feel as if they need to earn a mother’s love. This will leave a void in their heart all of their life. A mother’s love needs to be given unconditionally to establish trust and a firm foundation of emotional intimacy in a child’s life. If love is withheld, a child will look for it in a million other ways, sometimes throughout their lifetime unless they come to some sort of peace with their past. The emotional foundation we give our children at home is foundational to their life. We cannot underestimate the value of home and the power of a mother’s love.12

Her deepest longing, perhaps, was to be loved unconditionally, and at the same time be left in peace. But she never told anyone. It is shameful and egotistical to hope for unconditional love and at the same time want to be left in peace. The mother’s inner worlds were neatly sealed—dark, gilded worlds.

Simply holding on to that tangible link between mother and daughter. A bond like no other. Irreplaceable. Unwavering. Old as time itself. There truly was nothing like the love of a mother. Unconditional. Solid. Indefinable and limitless. Capable of surviving anything. Able to triumph over the impossible.

If other people often disappoint us and cause us to be irritated or angry, it does not mean that others are bad, but that we expect too much from the, because our love is only human. Mary, as Mother of love, wants to educate us for Christ's Christian, unconditional, strong, tireless love. She is an example

that he would never be free of her because they were destined to be together in this life and others. In the past they had not always been man and wife, she would say: most likely in other lives they were mother and son or brother and sister, which would explain the unconditional love that bound them together

It’s true I’ve got a cold streak. I recognize that. But if they—my father and mother—had loved me a little more, I would have been able to feel more—to feel real sadness, for example.” “Do you think you weren’t loved enough?” She tilted her head and looked at me. Then she gave a sharp, little nod. “Somewhere between ‘not enough’ and ‘not at all.’ I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. But they never gave that to me. Never, not once. If I tried to cuddle up and beg for something, they’d just shove me away and yell at me. ‘No! That costs too much!’ It’s all I ever heard. So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I was still in elementary school at the time—fifth or sixth grade—but I made up my mind once and for all.” “Wow,” I said. “And did your search pay off?” “That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.” “Waiting for the perfect love?” “No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” “I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. “It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are times in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” “Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” “Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. ‘Now I see, Midori. What a fool I’ve been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?’” “So then what?” “So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” “Sounds crazy to me.” “Well, to me, that’s what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though.” Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. “For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn’t begin at all.” “I’ve never met a girl who thinks like you.

In Mao’s relationship with his mother, while she seems to have shown unconditional love and indulgence for him, his treatment of her combined strong feelings with selfishness. In later life, he told one of his closest staff a revealing story: “When my mother was dying, I told her I could not bear to see her looking in agony. I wanted to keep a beautiful image of her, and told her I wanted to stay away for a while. My mother was a very understanding person, and she agreed. So the image of my mother in my mind has always been and still is today a healthy and beautiful one.” On her deathbed, the person who took priority in Mao’s consideration was himself,

Since Liz’s adolescence, when viewing television commercials that celebrated the ostensibly unconditional love of mothers for their children, or on spotting merchandise in stores that honored this unique bond with poems or effusive declarations—picture frames, magnets, oven mitts—she had felt like a foreign exchange student observing the customs of another country.

MOTHER! The holiest body on earth without which even god's existence seems next to impossible. A woman whose sufferings cannot be conveyed . A women whose love cannot be measured. The one who loves you unconditionally and protects you beyond her limits. Yes, she's the real hero, a true warrior. Who can win millions of hearts just by her tender touch. She's my bestie.

Ari blinked back tears, squeezing her mother’s hand and holding on. Simply holding on to that tangible link between mother and daughter. A bond like no other. Irreplaceable. Unwavering. Old as time itself. There truly was nothing like the love of a mother. Unconditional. Solid. Indefinable and limitless. Capable of surviving anything. Able to triumph over the impossible. And

Jina langu ni Enock Maregesi na ningependa kukwambia kisa kidogo kuhusiana na bibi yangu, Martha Maregesi. Mwanamke huyu alikuwa mke mwenye upendo usiokuwa na masharti yoyote. Alikuwa mama na bibi aliyefundisha familia yake umuhimu wa kujitolea na umuhimu wa uvumilivu. Ijapokuwa hakupendelea sana kujizungumzia mwenyewe, ningependa kukusimulia kisa kidogo kuhusiana na hadithi ya maisha ya mwanamke huyu wa ajabu katika maisha yangu. Bibi yangu alizaliwa katika Kitongoji cha Butimba, Kijiji cha Kome, Kata ya Bwasi, Tarafa ya Nyanja (Majita), Wilaya ya Musoma Vijijini, Mkoa wa Mara, katika familia ya watoto kumi, mwaka 1930. Alisoma katika Shule ya Msingi ya Kome ambako alipata elimu ya awali na msingi na pia elimu ya kiroho kwani shule yao ilikuwa ya madhehebu ya Kisabato. Aliolewa na Bwana Maregesi Musyangi Sabi mwaka 1946, na kufanikiwa kupata watoto watatu; wa kiume wakiwa wawili na wa kike mmoja. Matatizo hasa ya bibi yalianza mwaka 2005, alipougua kiharusi akiwa nyumbani kwake huko Musoma. Hata hivyo alitibiwa hapo Musoma na Dar es Salaam akapona na kuwa mwenye afya ya kawaida. Lakini tarehe 19/10/2014 alipatwa tena na kiharusi na kulazwa tena katika Hospitali ya Mkoa ya Musoma, ila akajisikia nafuu na kuruhusiwa kurudi nyumbani – lakini kwa maagizo ya daktari ya kuendelea na dawa akiwa nje ya hospitali. Tarehe 29/10/2014 alirudi tena Hospitali ya Mkoa ya Musoma kwa tiba zaidi, lakini tarehe 4/11/2014 saa 7:55 usiku akafariki dunia; akiwa amezungukwa na familia yake. Dunia ina watu wachache sana wenye matumaini na misimamo ya kutegemea mazuri, na wachache zaidi ambao wako tayari kugawa matumaini na misimamo hiyo kwa watu wengine. Nitajisikia furaha siku zote kwamba miongoni mwa watu hao wachache, hata bibi yangu alikuwemo. Msalaba uliwekwa wakfu na Mwenyezi Mungu baada ya mwili wa Yesu Kristo kuning’inizwa juu yake. Kwa kuwa bibi yangu ametanguliwa na msalaba, msalaba utamwongoza mahali pa kwenda.

On our particular mission, senior marines met with local school officials while the rest of us provided security or hung out with the schoolkids, playing soccer and passing out candy and school supplies. One very shy boy approached me and held out his hand. When I gave him a small eraser, his face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face. I don’t believe in epiphanies. I don’t believe in transformative moments, as transformation is harder than a moment. I’ve seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is. But that moment, with that boy, was pretty close for me. For my entire life, I’d harbored resentment at the world. I was mad at my mother and father, mad that I rode the bus to school while other kids caught rides with friends, mad that my clothes didn’t come from Abercrombie, mad that my grandfather died, mad that we lived in a small house. That resentment didn’t vanish in an instant, but as I stood and surveyed the mass of children of a war-torn nation, their school without running water, and the overjoyed boy, I began to appreciate how lucky I was: born in the greatest country on earth, every modern convenience at my fingertips, supported by two loving hillbillies, and part of a family that, for all its quirks, loved me unconditionally. At that moment, I resolved to be the type of man who would smile when someone gave him an eraser. I haven’t quite made it there, but without that day in Iraq, I wouldn’t be trying. The

At its best there’s nothing like the church. A place where Matthew 25 is just a normal day—a place where the poor are fed and clothed, the sick are helped and healed, a place where the immigrant is welcomed, and the prisoner is given dignity. A place where everyone is saint and sinner. A place where a judge and a felon can sit side by side on the same pew with equal status in Christ. A place where we not only carry each other’s burdens, but when necessary carry each other, because, despite our vast differences in education and opportunity, opinions and politics, we are learning to love one another like Jesus loves us—unconditionally. This is the church I believe in. Lord Jesus, help us to behold the church as our mother. And help us to care for our mother, the church, in such a way that she can provide motherly love and care for her sons and daughters. Amen.

As it was, she gave him the single most important gift a parent can give—“a sense of unconditional love that was big enough that, with all the surface disturbances of our lives, it sustained me, entirely.” People wonder about his calm and even-keeled manner, the [P]resident observed. He credited the temperament he was born with and the fact that “from a very early age, I always felt I was loved and that my mother thought I was special.

I occasionally find myself aching for the infant and toddler I’d once known and loved. She’s been replaced now with a little girl who has opinions about her hair, asks her mom to paint her nails, and will soon be spending most of her day at school, under the care of a teacher I have yet to meet. These days, I find myself wishing I could turn back the clock so I could more fully experience London’s first five years: I’d work fewer hours, spend more time playing on the floor with her, and share her wonder as she focuses on the flight path of butterflies. I want London to know how much joy she has added to my life and to tell her that I have done the best I could. I want her to understand that even though her mother has always been with her, I have loved her as much as any father could possibly love a daughter. Why, then, I sometimes wonder, do I feel as if that’s not enough?

It’s like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me, it’s just remembering how to enjoy it. “The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads—none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of—unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn’t get enough.

Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. (p. 191)

Since the Goddess has not been an integral part of Western life for the past two thousand years, we as her children are rather maladjusted. The Goddess, or Divine mother, would lead us in the way of natural law, wisdom and unconditional love; however, we don't pay enough attention to this aspect of God. That may be because of old beliefs that the Goddess is pagan and heathen. This is most unfortunate because we then overlook her beneficial, life-enhancing and regenerative powers and her offer of renewal.

After Mary confessed that dream to him, Jack got to wondering how women felt about motherhood once their children are grown and didn't need them anymore. How do they close the storybooks, box up the toys, and pack up the memories of the deeply lived-in childhoods of their babies? Childhoods that fly by quickly and selfishly, without regard to a mother's unconditional love and sacrifice. How does a mother go on being a mother when one day she wakes up and finds that her arms are empty and her grown children are walking away from her without so much as a glance back?

I offer the wisdom of Eric Fromm, in his classic book The Art of Loving.1 He says that the healthiest people he has known, and those who very often grow up in the most natural way, are those who, between their two parents and early authority figures, experienced a combination of unconditional love along with very conditional and demanding love! This seems to be true of so many effective and influential people, like St. Francis, John Muir, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mother Teresa, and you can add your own. I know my siblings and I received conditional love from our mother and unconditional love from our father. We all admit now that she served us very well later in life, although we sure fought Mom when we were young. And we were glad Daddy was there to balance her out. I know this is not the current version of what is psychologically “correct,” because we all seem to think we need nothing but unconditional love. Any law, correction, rule, or limitation is another word for conditional love. It is interesting to me that very clear passages describing both God's conditional love and also God's unconditional love are found in the same Scriptures, like Deuteronomy and John's Gospel. The only real biblical promise is that unconditional love will have the last word!

An indescribable amount of love for my mother resides deep within my inner being. However, it is the awareness of the unconditional love she also has for me — and how she believes in me — that gave me incredible strength and confidence during many crossroads of life when nights were the darkest. Knowing that not many are fortunate to be able to say the same while truly meaning it, it makes me feel eternally grateful for our mutually trusting relationship. Not just as a mother and son; but also as friends, as humans souls sharing this fleeting life on Planet Earth. May Love, Health, and Happiness be your everyday companions. Forever and Ever.

Losing a mother is a unique kind of loss. A mother understands your heartbeats when you cannot even interpret their sounds. They see you as magnificent even when you feel like you’re so unworthy of love. They calm the doubts that wreak havoc on your soul. They show you what unconditional love is from the day you take your first breath. Sometimes it feels like they know you better than you’ll ever know yourself, and then, one day, they are gone. You feel cheated. Cheated on the things that they haven’t yet taught. Cheated on the lessons you still needed to learn. Cheated out of laughter, and smiles, and comfort, and love. But what I’ve learned with time is that my mother is still around me. I see her in everything. Whenever there is beauty, that is where my mother exists. I know she’s never gone, no matter what reality tries to tell me, because my heart is crafted from her love, and as long as it beats, she lives on.

That’s the thing about the “immeasurably more.” God prepares you for it even when it’s nowhere on your to-do list. And now that I have the benefit of looking at my childhood through a lens with some wisdom attached, it occurs to me that during all those Sunday dinners when I was growing up, I learned something way more important than how to make a pitcher of sweet tea or where to put the salad fork or when to pick up dinner plates before Mama served dessert. I learned something more important than how to be a lady, even. I learned to listen and to laugh. I learned to forgive. I learned that some earthly love really is unconditional. I learned that God is always at work in the day to day. I learned that even when you’re sad or embarrassed or just plain mad, you’re always welcome at the table. And more than anything else, I learned how to take care of people. I learned how to let them take care of me. I learned how to be a family. I didn’t have the slightest clue that anyone was teaching me, of course. But I’m forever grateful for the lesson. CHAPTER SIX Mother’s Got a Bell!

Fathers and sons, probably one of the most emotionally deep, human relationships. Probably one of the most intense human equations. Words alone cannot describe what a father and son feel for each other, simply because there are such few words in this relationship. So much is left unsaid between the two of them. Communication, or rather a lack of it, always broadens the gap between the two of them. There’s always a gap between a father and son, always a gap between a name and a surname. I’ve always asked myself and today I address this question to all of you sons out there: Why did you stop hugging your father after a certain age? Why did you stop expressing, and being affectionate to your father after a certain age? Why is there this inexplicable awkwardness between a father and son? Why are all your emotions, your innermost thoughts, your tears, always reserved for your mother, your sister and then your wife? Why? Because you then become a father, and then you bottle up, just like your father did, and this vicious circle continues. Who is going to break this vicious circle? I realized, and I’m sure this applies to all of you as well, that, like everybody else, I too had issues, minor issues with my father, like every other son. You could call it a generation gap, you could call it a difference of opinion, you could call it anything. But what I also realized was that I was subconsciously being the man my father is. I was talking like him, feeling like him, loving like him—I was just being him. I then realized that a father not only gives his son his name, he also gives him his personality. So somewhere, if you have a problem with your father, you actually have a problem with yourself. Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve had this realization and this opportunity to express myself, and I wish with all my heart, that one day you do too. My father is my conscience, my father is my strength, my father is my support, my father is my hero. I don’t say it often enough to you, Dad, but what better than this global platform to say, I love you. I love you very, very, very much. And I wish I could love you as much as you love me, but I don’t think I’m capable of such unconditional love. I love you. You are my world. And then Amit uncle, who was there, said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I think whatever needed to be said about Mr Yash Johar, his son Karan has very ably done.

THE OBEDIENCE GAME DUGGAR KIDS GROW UP playing the Obedience Game. It’s sort of like Mother May I? except it has a few extra twists—and there’s no need to double-check with “Mother” because she (or Dad) is the one giving the orders. It’s one way Mom and Dad help the little kids in the family burn off extra energy some nights before we all put on our pajamas and gather for Bible time (more about that in chapter 8). To play the Obedience Game, the little kids all gather in the living room. After listening carefully to Mom’s or Dad’s instructions, they respond with “Yes, ma’am, I’d be happy to!” then run and quickly accomplish the tasks. For example, Mom might say, “Jennifer, go upstairs to the girls’ room, touch the foot of your bed, then come back downstairs and give Mom a high-five.” Jennifer answers with an energetic “Yes, ma’am, I’d be happy to!” and off she goes. Dad might say, “Johannah, run around the kitchen table three times, then touch the front doorknob and come back.” As Johannah stands up she says, “Yes, sir, I’d be happy to!” “Jackson, go touch the front door, then touch the back door, then touch the side door, and then come back.” Jackson, who loves to play army, stands at attention, then salutes and replies, “Yes, sir, I’d be happy to!” as he goes to complete his assignment at lightning speed. Sometimes spotters are sent along with the game player to make sure the directions are followed exactly. And of course, the faster the orders can be followed, the more applause the contestant gets when he or she slides back into the living room, out of breath and pleased with himself or herself for having complied flawlessly. All the younger Duggar kids love to play this game; it’s a way to make practicing obedience fun! THE FOUR POINTS OF OBEDIENCE THE GAME’S RULES (MADE up by our family) stem from our study of the four points of obedience, which Mom taught us when we were young. As a matter of fact, as we are writing this book she is currently teaching these points to our youngest siblings. Obedience must be: 1. Instant. We answer with an immediate, prompt “Yes ma’am!” or “Yes sir!” as we set out to obey. (This response is important to let the authority know you heard what he or she asked you to do and that you are going to get it done as soon as possible.) Delayed obedience is really disobedience. 2. Cheerful. No grumbling or complaining. Instead, we respond with a cheerful “I’d be happy to!” 3. Thorough. We do our best, complete the task as explained, and leave nothing out. No lazy shortcuts! 4. Unconditional. No excuses. No, “That’s not my job!” or “Can’t someone else do it? or “But . . .” THE HIDDEN GOAL WITH this fun, fast-paced game is that kids won’t need to be told more than once to do something. Mom would explain the deeper reason behind why she and Daddy desired for us to learn obedience. “Mom and Daddy won’t always be with you, but God will,” she says. “As we teach you to hear and obey our voice now, our prayer is that ultimately you will learn to hear and obey what God’s tells you to do through His Word.” In many families it seems that many of the goals of child training have been lost. Parents often expect their children to know what they should say and do, and then they’re shocked and react harshly when their sweet little two-year-old throws a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. This parental attitude probably stems from the belief that we are all born basically good deep down inside, but the truth is, we are all born with a sin nature. Think about it: You don’t have to teach a child to hit, scream, whine, disobey, or be selfish. It comes naturally. The Bible says that parents are to “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

I miss Diana more than I can express. The world seems a colder place without her luminous presence. To had had Diana’s friendship, to have known her personally, has been a gift beyond comparison. She brought joy and pride and a touch of glamour to my life for years. I loved and admired her without reservation. When Patrick recognized her picture on magazine covers, I thought how incredible it was that we actually knew the beautiful, famous Diana. Best of all, we knew she was even lovelier inside. I read her letters, feeling deeply touched that she continued to care for us. Seeing her in person--warm, unpretentious, and radiant--was a thrill that lasted a long, long time. It truly was, “like being brushed by angels’ wings,” as my friend at the funeral had said. Whoever would have thought when I called for a nanny so many years ago, that magic would enter my life. My family and I watched her dazzling progress from a shy teenager to a multi-faceted and charismatic woman. She fulfilled her many roles so beautifully. Yet to me, Diana was a beloved friend, not the world-famous Princess of Wales. Behind the glamour, I saw the qualities I’d always admired in her--kindness, integrity, and grace in all she did. Above all, Diana was born to be a mother. Showing affection was as natural to her as breathing. I saw her tender care for my young son. I know she was an utterly devoted mother to her own boys, giving them unconditional love and deriving her greatest joy in life from them. I’ve wished so often that her life had been a fairytale, that Diana had been spared the pain and loneliness she suffered. But without the despair, she might not have developed the strength and humanity that reached out to people everywhere. Diana instinctively looked beyond her own problems to ease the pain and distress of others. She touched so many people in her short lifetime. I never thought it would end this way--that she would die so young. I will always remember, as the last hymn faded into silence at her funeral, the solemn tread of the soldiers’ boots--so haunting, so final--as they carried her casket through the Abbey. I couldn’t bear that she was leaving forever. For months now, I’ve searched for some solace in this tragedy. I hope that Diana’s untimely death and the worldwide mourning for her have silenced forever those who belittled her values and doubted her appeal. She rests peacefully now beyond reproach--young and beautiful. Diana, you were greater than we realized. We will never, never forget you.