An Unbroken Circle

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I recently wrote about Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, recommending it as a good book for young people to read before making a decision about whom to marry. Then I shared a passage about paying attention. As I continued listening to it recently, I came upon another passage I would like to share. This passage is about the heartbreak of family partiality.

A well-meaning aunt and uncle took Fanny Price into their family when she was ten years old. Fanny’s mother had not chosen her husband well and was now the mother of several children. The aunt and uncle decided to help her by providing a home for her eldest daughter. Fanny was heartbroken to leave her family, but by the time she was a young woman, she had come to love her aunt, uncle, and cousins. Finally after an absence of about ten years, she was given an opportunity to visit her mother, father, and siblings, only one of whom she had seen in the years she had been away.

Fanny was happy about the prospect of seeing her parents and other siblings after so many years. Her mother welcomed her warmly when she first arrived, but Fanny soon discovered that she wasn’t really very important to her parents at all. Listen to the realizations she had shortly after her visit began.

Her disappointment in her mother was greater: there she had hoped much, and found almost nothing. Every flattering scheme of being of consequence to her soon fell to the ground. Mrs. Price was not unkind; but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from her than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price’s attachment had no other source. Her heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her. She was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey [a girl of five years old] was the first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comforts. These shared her heart . . .

What a pity. Favoritism is very unkind in a mama (or in any family member, for that matter). In this painting, American artist John Henry Twachtman depicted his wife Martha, their daughters Marjorie and Elsie, and their newborn son. I see a scene of mutual love between a mother and all of her children. None of us wants to imagine that that love and closeness will ever diminish.

Every person has the capacity to love every family member and to add more and more family members without the love for any one of them diminishing just because more are added to a never-broken circle. True love doesn’t subtract. It multiplies.

Every child needs to be sure of his or her mama’s love and that she does not favor anyone else above another.

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ
with an attitude of personal favoritism.
James 2:1

For there is no partiality with God.
Romans 2:11

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