Introduction
As a young man, I particularly enjoyed watching western movies. My favorite star, of course, was John Wayne. Wayne had a way of saying things in a movie that showed he meant business, and I always thought he portrayed the character of a “man’s man” regardless of his role. One film, in particular, remains in my mind, likely due to the catching title: True Grit. I do not recall seeing all the film, only bits and pieces, but enough to remember John Wayne portraying the no-nonsense U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn. The story, based on a novel, follows the ventures of a young girl named Mattie who is out for revenge for the murder of her father. She travels to find and hire aging U.S. Marshall Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn because Mattie heard that he had true grit. The rest of the story follows Mattie, Rooster, and others they pick up along the way as they seek to bring to justice the man who had murdered Mattie’s father. As always, John Wayne masterfully portrays a rough tough character who embodies everything we might tend to think of when it comes to a man from the wild west, and most of all, he models true grit.
Men are supposed to have grit. They ought to be able to endure the tough stuff of life, persevere in the face of adversity, and get back up when life knocks them down. While grit is oftentimes thought of as a character quality that ought to be found in the manliest of men, I have found grit in other places as well. Not only men have grit. In fact, not only men ought to have grit. Some of the “grittiest” people on the face of the earth are not male; they are, in fact, female. You might not think of them this way, and their soft, tender demeanor might not automatically bring Rooster Cogburn galloping across a dusty trail to mind, but the grit is there, nonetheless. It must be if they are to survive life. To whom am I referring? What specific types of individuals do I think to have every bit as much grit as a man in a movie about true grit? I am thinking of mothers.
Moms need grit. If they are to navigate the world in which we live while raising little ones, grit is a box that must be checked on their resume; no mom will survive without grit. Grit allows moms to be tough in the face of adversity. Grit allows mothers to keep calm in the face of great danger. Grit makes moms protectors of their young, willing to do almost anything to protect their families. Yes, moms must have true grit!
I have most vividly seen true grit displayed in the life of my own wife, the mother of our four boys. In many ways, our life situation demands grit. Aside from having four children, and the fact that all of them are boys, our family history raises the difficulty level exponentially. All four of our boys have been adopted through foster care and are special needs children. Their families and lives have been ripped apart in various ways, and it is our task to put their lives back together. As a stay-at-home mom, my wife is a key player in this, and it takes grit. Our home has been ravaged by the effects of incredible trauma, including physical neglect, prenatal exposure, and both physical and mental abuse. Daily, my wife stares face to face at the demons of our children’s past, and she does so with grit. The tantrums, meltdowns, insecurities, trauma responses, and survival mechanisms of our children make parenting especially difficult in our home, yet my wife has the grit to endure the screaming, crying, and physical aggression from young lives who have seen tremendous pain. She navigates the special needs of our young ones with extra care and patience, and she almost never complains. During many weeks she hauls our children off to as many as six different therapies to address various issues and needs that they have, but the life of a chauffeur to dysregulated children does not make her crack. During the night, she rarely gets an uninterrupted night’s sleep, and multiple nights a week sleep is interrupted by one, two, or even three children calling, often multiple times a night, because they need one thing or another. Of course, I try to help share this burden, but many times children just want their mama. Sometimes I wonder how she has kept from being institutionalized herself amidst such erratic circumstances, but she navigates all of this and much more because she has grit!
Final Thoughts
So, this year on Mother’s Day, I want to give some recognition, not to the kind, godly, tender attributes of moms, but to the grit. Being a mom could be one of the most difficult jobs in the world; it certainly has the highest stakes. Yet moms do it, lovingly, willfully, and they keep doing it. Not because they are soft, tender, and kind, though that is very often the case. They do it because they have grit, and I for one am especially thankful that they have enough grit to see the job through to the end!
