[Miralee Ferrell] Family

4 Generations. Maude, Sylvia, Miralee, Marnee 1976

Family—a word that should evoke feelings of safety and belonging.

Mother—a word that should bring a smile to the face of any child—whether young or old.

What happens when both, or either, of those words stirs up something totally different?

A harsh judgmental mother, an absentee mother, a mother striving to find her worth in her career, a mother who’s never been shown love and struggles to show it in return. What do these women have in common? Children who long for acceptance, reassurance of their own worth, and who often believe they’ll never measure up.

Did you ever fantasize that you had the perfect parents, perfect siblings, or a perfect home? Maybe in your imagination, yours was better/bigger/more loving than all of your friends, but when you walked through the door the fantasy disappeared. I’ve prayed with so many women who were wounded as children by the words or actions of the very people who should have protected them.

I’m in rather an unusual position in my ‘life apart from writing’ from what many authors experience, as writers often tend to be solitary creatures. I love my quiet time at my computer as well as my interaction with friends and readers on social networking sites, but like many Christians, I’ve found a way to minister in outside areas as well. Over the years as I’ve ministered to women, I’ve learned that all families are not created equal.

Miralee and her grandmother

Several years ago, I had an opportunity to reach out to a friend who had a lifelong struggle with her mother. I’ll call my friend Ruth, and her mother Carla. Ruth had never felt accepted by Carla, no matter how hard she tried to please. Censure, demeaning words, criticism and hurt were at the core of most conversations between the two women. It had been this way throughout Ruth’s entire life. Carla believed herself to be a good mother who was pointing out the flaws in her daughter’s life and the places she could ‘do better’, never thinking that her words and actions shot arrows into Ruth’s soul that festered and never had a chance to heal. For every time Ruth reached out for healing, the barbs would shoot out again, creating new wounds on top of old.

I offered to pray with my friend and was gently rejected. Ruth is a Christian, and she believes in healing, but she couldn’t endure the thought that healing might begin, only to return to her home (with Mama living nearby) and have the wounds start all over again. It was easier to pretend it didn’t hurt—or to grow a hard shell over her heart and refuse to let anyone too close.

What a sad picture. What a tragedy that two women who both know Christ could be so bound up in their own wounds and past that they missed one of the most beautiful treasures given by God—that of the loving, nurturing relationship between a mother and child.

Ramona Tucker has been my editor for my nine of my books, and after reading my novel, Blowing on Dandelions, she had this to say concerning the subject of family, and most of all, the relationship between mothers and daughters. “When I was at “Today’s Christian Woman” magazine as their head, this (struggle/conflict between mothers and daughters) was one of the HUGE relational issues that causes women pain across the years…..As I read your story, I was struck by the power and transformation this book can and will have in women’s lives—healing of the generations.”

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My hope in writing Blowing on Dandelions was to reach out to women who have been on both sides of the fence—the mothers who don’t understand their daughters—who are hurt by what they perceive as their cold or aloof behavior—and the daughters who have never truly felt accepted or loved by their mothers. It’s rare to find cases where either is ever 100% in the wrong, so I worked to depict the heart of each woman, in the hope others might be able to relate to one position or the other. So often there is ‘backstory’ in a woman’s life…something we authors try to avoid when writing novels, but something we must understand about our characters to be able to flesh them out and bring them to life.

We’ve all been shaped by events in our past, and we all have pain in our lives. God redeemed us through His son Jesus—but we don’t become perfect when we accept that redemption. But thanks be to Him, He provides healing and restoration to all who will come and ask. Can we force the person who’s hurt us to change or to treat us in the way we pray they someday will? No, of course not. God won’t force them either. But He can and will bring healing and peace to hurting, broken, and damaged lives when they seek Him.

Have you been wounded by someone who should have protected and loved you? I pray you’ll be able to come to the place of laying that hurt and sadness at Jesus’s feet and allowing Him to heal you and bring you peace. It’s what He came to do—to give us life, and that more abundantly, but we have to ask—and most of all, forgiveness must be woven through our prayers for others, and we must accept forgiveness and healing for ourselves.

Miralee Ferrell is an award-winning, best-selling author of 24 books. Her most recent novel, Runaway Romance, released in January 2018 on UP TV, and afterward on Hallmark on Demand, and From the Heart (still being written), will air in 2020 on Hallmark. Finding Love in Bridal Veil, Oregon, should release in 2020 or 2021.

Miralee is the owner and founder of Mountain Brook Ink, a traditional publisher with over 65 titles in print. She lives in the Pacific N.W. with her husband, two cats, sixteen chickens, and one very spoiled little dog. Miralee loves horseback riding and hiking with her daughter.

Boxed Set—Love Blossoms in Oregon

$0.99 to buy or FREE if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited

Four historical romance novels, set in Baker City, Oregon, in the 1880s. Warm, sensitive romance that will leave you feeling you’ve visited the town & met the people. This includes Forget Me Not, not included in the original set when released.

“Readers will be swept up by the blossoming romance in this second book in Ferrell’s historical series about the lives of those who traveled on the Oregon Trail. It’s sure to engross fans of best-selling authors Johanna Lindsey and Maeve Binchy.”  

— Library Journal Review

“This tender tale reinforces recognition of the necessity of trust and the unbreakable bond of family.”

— Publishers Weekly