T. Suzanne Eller - The Mom I Want to Be: Rising Above Your Past to Give Your Kids a Great Future

Offers tangible help so we can pass on the best of who we are to our children and grandchildrenA tool chest full of help and hope!

Pam Farrel, coauthor of Got Teens? and Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti

As the product of a dysfunctional home, and as a wife and motherI was not disappointed

Thanks, Suzie, for the reassuring examples of the healing, love, and sufficiency of our wonderful Lord. Thanks for writing this book for so many women.

Kendra Smiley, conference speaker and author of Aarons Way, Be the Parent (Moody, 2006), and others

A must-read for mothers desiring to overcome the pain of parenting mistakes they experienced as childrenSuzie shows her readers how to rise above the past to leave a legacy of love for their sons and daughters.

Grace Fox, author of 10-Minute Time Outs for Moms and 10-Minute Time Outs for Busy Women

An insightful resource that will bring healing and hope to scores of women. I highly recommend it!

Cheri Fuller, speaker and bestselling author of A Busy Womans Guide to Prayer

Paints a new picture of encouragement, hope, and healing for every mother, regardless of past circumstancesEvery womanevery momyoung or old, needs to read this book.

Rebecca Barlow Jordan, speaker and author of 40 Days in Gods Presence

The Mom I Want to Be encourages readers to grow, dream, grasp possibilities, and savor the momentA wonderful tool for rediscoveringGods unconditional love.

Jenn Doucette, author of The Velveteen Mommy: Laughter and Tears from the Toy Box Years

Offers the tools you need to break the power of potentially hurtful parenting patterns. Get ready to reinvent your motherhood. This book will set you free.

Caron Loveless, author ( The Words That Inspired the Dreams and others), speaker, mother of three; www.caronloveless.com

Eller speaks to readers where they are, and then helps them examine where they have been so they can put their memories in proper perspective and answer the call to a future full of promise.

Kathi Macias, author and speaker

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Verses marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota

Cover photo BananaStock / Alamy

Back-cover author photo Larry Watts

T. Suzanne Eller is published in association with the literary agency of Books & Such, 4788 Carissa Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95405.

This book is published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite #200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

THE MOM I WANT TO BE

Copyright 2006 by T. Suzanne Eller

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eller, T. Suzanne.

The mom I want to be / T. Suzanne Eller.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7369-1755-1 (pbk.)

Product # 6917551

1. MotherhoodPsychological aspects. 2. MothersPsychology. I. Title.

HQ759.E428 2006

248.8'431dc22 2006001332

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

To the women in my family tree

my mother, Karen L. Morrison
my sisters, Vicci Gilles and Mindy Stephens
my daughters, Leslie Eller and Melissa Hall

This project was an incredible journey, and I want to thank those who took it with me.

I want to thank my mom, Karen Morrison. There were many times on this rocky road when she amazed me with her insight and grace. There were WOW! moments when I realized how much God had healed her, and how beautiful second chances can be.

Thank you, Paul Gossard, for your gentle editing. I felt like I gained a brother on this trip. You were both an editor and a cheerleader. You understood my heart from the beginning, and Im grateful.

I appreciate Janet K. Grant, my agent. Thank you for continuing to believe in my writing and ministry.

I want to thank Richard. You simply rock as a husband!

Last, I will always be indebted to God. How cool that he believes in us when we dont know how to believe in ourselves.

by Jill Savage

In my 14 years of encouraging moms through the Hearts at Home organization, Ive found that most of us became moms before we had any inkling of all that motherhood required. Ive also found that few of us ever feel fully confident in the job.

Many women learn their mothering skills from their own mothers. The basic skills of homemaking, relationships, parenting, and marriage are carried from childhood into adulthood. These are the building blocks of a healthy family.

However, not every mom has these basic skills from her family of origin. For some, home was a place of emotional absence. Emptiness. A lack of love. A non-nurturing environment. Nothing was particularly bad at homethere just wasnt much intentionality in parenting.

For others, there was abuse, alcoholism, or other addictions or dysfunctions that destroy hope and self-worth. These moms remember not only emptiness or a lack of love; they may well remember rage, fear, manipulation, or shame also.

Most moms who grow up in a lacking environment vow they will be different from what their parents were. However, conviction carries us only so far. We need something more. The home in which we grew up is where we did our mothering internshipnow, as adults, as moms, its very possible we need to do a new internship. We need to know what to do with the past, and we need a vision for the future.

Thats what this book is all about. It addresses the past and helps moms know how to make peace with it. Most important, however, it shares a vision for the future. It is part of a new internship for moms whose internship was lacking in what they needed as a childand ultimately as a mom.