Gestures of Love

Did you ever get the look from your Mother in church? More than likely it was during the preaching service and you were either, talking, swinging your legs to and fro or kicking the pew in front of you. Maybe you grabbed the song book or just kept wiggling around in your seat. The look settled you down immediately because it promised you were heading into a danger zone.

Perhaps you were sitting in front of Bro. Joe T Wilson and laughed out loud when he stuck his lower teeth out at you! Or you yelled at your brother for taking a color from you. If the preacher was yelling, why couldn’t you yell too? You never saw it coming! The pinch grabbed you by surprise on that soft spot at the back of your arm just above your elbow, or the side of your leg, maybe even an ear. Whatever was within reach, if you got the pinch, you had really messed up and the “look” told you so.

The snatch, grab and tuck, only occurs when the look and the pinch don’t work. For instance, during one of Bro. Conrad Glover’s long prayers you yelled AMEN four times before your mother could clamp her hand over your mouth, throw you under her arm, fly down that isle and take you outside. Professional football players have got nothing on your Mother when it comes to moves.

I often wondered if my Mother stood at the mirror and practiced the look until she perfected it. Did she warm her fingers up before the pinch? How many times did she have to practice grabbing me, pulling me up and over a pew and throwing me under her arm without knocking down a single person? Surely they must have training classes for perfecting such moves!

As I grew up I came to understand you naturally inherit those skills from your Mother. I knew how the pinch felt, therefore I decided I would not use that on my kids unless absolutely necessary. Many a times though I would snap my fingers and point at my children giving them the “look”. I watched as they recognized the trouble that was brewing.

God knows us, yet He loves us. Mothers are gifted with these talents from God and He expects her to use them as often as necessary and He blesses her for it. Somehow, years later, the memory lingers but the pain of the pinch has faded and love takes its place.

Keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother. Proverbs 6:20