Truth in Love

I was speaking with my mom this morning about wedding plans. In fact, I had called her for an entirely different reason, but of course, it's always something to ask nowadays so she brought it up. Everytime we discuss the wedding, it ends up in a heated argument and at least for the past two phone calls home in the past 2-3 weeks, it has resulted in her hanging up on me in frustration.

In my prideful defence, I shared the dialogue of the conversation with my sister, of course, banking on the fact that she would see just how ridiculously crazy our mom is and tell me that it's ok, I was in the right and I should just be the bigger person and let it go. While she did say that maybe our mom is a little unreasonable (only a little??) she also gave me counsel regarding my attitude towards my mom.

My mom is not the best at articulating her thoughts and ideas. Should I exploit that weakness of hers knowing full well that she won't be able to express herself and her point of view when I quickly usher us into an argument or debate? I know I can win the argument against my mom, but then so what? Have I really won when looking at the situation from a broader perspective? Is it really fair and loving to declare war against my mom when I know I'm putting her on unfavourable battlefield for her to fight? And am I really at war with my mom... ???

I have to remind myself that my mom says certain things MOST LIKELY because she's trying to love her daughter the best way she knows how. Perhaps traditions and customs are the way she does that. This is really difficult for me because I don't want to follow traditions and customs for the sake of following customs and traditions. If they don't mean anything to us, or our family, aside from the fact that everyone is doing them and therefore, we must also, then maybe we should rethink why we're investing resources to continue to follow those traditions and customs. Can i communicate that to her in way that doesn't make her think i'm a completely rebellious daughter of hers?

And so, I continue to try to learn how to speak truth in love.
And also pray that when others are trying to speak truth to me, that i can be receptive to hear it. Just somehow, family always causes me to naturally bring up those extra defences....somehow...