Learning to Heal Where I Longed to Be Held

Hi Darling,

I debated sharing this for a while, but I believe I’m finally in a place where I can speak from healing rather than hurt.

I lost my mom at a young age—at the very age I needed her most. Growing up, I never really asked myself “What if my mom dies?” Who does? Loss like that doesn’t just say “hey I’m coming to scoop your mom up”. It simply arrives and changes everything.

What I didn’t expect was the ache that would surface in my twenties. A deeper longing. A quiet desire for guidance, covering, and nurturing that I didn’t even have language for yet. With this, I learned God often blesses people with spiritual mothers and fathers—and I was grateful to experience that more than once.

But here’s the part that took time for me to understand: even good gifts can uncover unhealed places.

Because I had lost my mom so young, I sought out mother/daughter relationships and carrying expectations I didn’t realize I had. When things didn’t unfold the way I hoped, I internalized the pain and began to believe I was the problem. I wondered if something about me made it hard for anyone to stay in that role for long.

Looking back, I see that this wasn’t something that started in adulthood—it began much earlier.

As a child, I often assumed that other people’s moms didn’t like me. I can’t fully explain why. It was a quiet belief that lived in the background of my thoughts, and it shaped how I showed up.

Because of that, I found myself craving validation from older women and maternal figures. I wanted to be seen, chosen, and affirmed With that being said I wanted to be liked by any mom or woman figure. I looked for validation in any older woman and through this it caused a lot of hurt. A lot of my friends whether past or present would tell me about their mom problems and I would be thrown off like oh my goodness you are talking bad about your mom and I lost mine. But whenever God would bless me with a mom figure (if you will) I would do the same.

Which brings me to these verses;

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?”

Matthew 7:3 (NLT)

And again:

“Don’t eavesdrop on others—you may hear your servant curse you. For you know how often you yourself have cursed others.”

Ecclesiastes 7:21–22 (NLT)

These verses didn’t come to condemn me—they came to soften me.

Recently, God has been showing me something freeing: while spiritual mothers are a beautiful gift, they are not a requirement for wholeness. My healing does not depend on someone filling a role perfectly. God Himself is the one who mothers the brokenhearted, restores what was lost, and teaches us how to stand securely in His love.

This realization hasn’t made me less grateful for spiritual mothers—it’s made me more grounded. I no longer approach relationships from a place of need, but from a place of trust. Trust that God knows what I need, when I need it, and how to provide it—sometimes through people, and sometimes through His own presence.

If you carry “mom hurt,” I want you to know this: you are not broken, you are not difficult, and you are not unlovable. Longing does not make you weak—it makes you human. Healing begins when we allow God to tend to the places we expected others to fix.

And in that healing, we learn that we were never without a Mothering God all along.

With Love,

Neci 🤍