The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father.

Early love is described as a filter that makes something vast bearable, and the image works whether or not you hold the belief behind it. Whatever is enormous, call it God or call it the world, first reaches a child through the person holding them. The gentleness of that first mediation shapes how safe everything larger seems afterwards.

If yours was harsh or absent, the softening can be supplied later by other people, and often is. Notice who currently stands between you and the harder facts of your life. And notice that you may be doing that job for somebody without having realised it is a job.