This weekend I celebrated my mother’s 80th birthday with her. If you know Juanita, you know she's an incredible woman who has survived many difficulties, challenges and setbacks. And she manages to do it with glamour and a good spirit most all the time. She is the picture of resilience. Her growing up was full of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) (before we knew the term). Nevertheless, she managed to make a life and family and a career and countless friends. Some of those family and friends were able to join us this afternoon to mark and celebrate the fact that she has lived eight decades.

Tonight as I write this, I am fairly spent after a weekend of travel, party set up, balloons, food, a photo booth, and greeting friends from many phases of my parents’ lives, followed by clean-up, and traveling home three hours, and emptying the suitcases, and starting the laundry. There were other challenges along the way that had nothing whatsoever to do with the party. (Aren't there always?!) I loved every minute of planning and throwing this party for my mother. And now I’m tired.

But before I call it a night, I want to tell you a story that I hope will help you move through your week with a hard-won insight from my mother. I’m not sure I can do it justice. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a go.

Living with Struggles

Many years ago, at a particularly low point in her life, my mom was struggling with hard things. She was coming to terms with her relationship with her parents. Many family secrets were taking an emotional toll, and our family made a sudden move and change of homes. Mom was seeking care for her well-being. Yet it was a struggle each day. She had lots of theological questions, like where was God in all these struggles? I was in college, and studying religion at that time, so she asked some of her questions aloud with me. And we talked about them at great length.

Based on the experiences of abandonment and abuse in her childhood, it was hard for my mother to feel any sense of hope. She could not imagine how a God who seemed not to care for her as a vulnerable child could possibly have her best interests in mind in the future. She struggled not to get stuck in a past full of suffering. And she felt no assurance of God’s power to protect her. Did God care for her? Why did God abandon her or allow her to be harmed so badly? And for so long? Did God care about her healing? She felt stuck in a very helpless place.

Struggling with Hope

These unresolved feelings about the past made it hard for my mom to feel anything hopeful about her future. Her friends and some family wanted her to “snap out of it” or “get over it.” They asked her if it wasn’t “time to move on?” The answer to all of the advice and questions was NO.

With the help of her spiritual and psychological caregivers, therapists and healing groups, mom came to a new insight. She might not be able to say “things will all turn out fine” or "everything’s going to be OK” or “everything that’s happened is what God intended for the past or future.”

Yet there was one thing she could do and say. When something small or large happened, something good or graceful, or full of mercy (even if it didn't exactly feel hopeful), when something made her smile, she could do one thing.

She could celebrate that moment.

Celebrating the Moment

So she started allowing herself to feel the good of the moments that came. She even carried glitter in her purse for a while to help her celebrate moments when something worth celebrating happened.

These lowest moments and the powerful insight about celebrating the moment came to my mom through the years I was in college, living at home. She asked me to teach her to cross-stitch. Of course, I did. The first thing she cross-stitched was a small 4” by 6” design with the words “celebrate the moment.” She framed it. To remind herself to stay in the moment, to remain present, and to celebrate the gifts that showed up.

She learned to string together those moments, and some days are still not easy. But when something good comes, she can celebrate a moment.

This is good wisdom from 80 years of living. A good insight about what it is to embrace resilience: one small moment at a time. Healing isn't always dramatic or difinitive. Sometimes it is simply one moment at at time.  

I am celebrating this moment when my mom, who, in spite of her suffering in childhood, three rounds of cancer, all the side effects of treatment, and many other challenges, found resilience to embrace life and celebrate the moments worth celebrating. Something sacred is in this story. Something worth celebrating. 

How about you? What moments can you celebrate today? This week?

Pause right now and look around. What is looking back at you that is worth celebrating?