My Mother

There's no way a person can tell all of the ways that their mother has done things that makes them so important to their lives.




I have many memories of my mama.


I loved her whole wheat buns.  I still can see her standing at my counter kneading the dough.  And she was the one who baked all the birthday cakes for our family.



I remember how so many of the children who visited my children would stop at the bookcase by the front door as they came in the house and grab a book and go straight to her room to be read to.


I remember her always being busy with some kind of needlework or mind work.  The mind work might be a (hard-to-do) cross work puzzle or it might be some puzzler she came up with on her own, but she was always working on something.  The cross word puzzles she did kept her continually busy searching through encyclopedias, dictionaries, quote books, or whatever other resource we had at our disposal. 


Mama never let a subject go with just a simple answer.  If you asked her a question, she researched the answer deeply.  A debate I'd have with myself frequently was:  Do I really want to ask her this question?  Am I willing to give the time it will take for her to complete my answer?  because I knew when I asked that I would be getting an oral dissertation that covered every conceivable aspect of the subject that she already knew or could dig out from the various resources available to her in our home (and she had made sure we had numerous resources).



I told my son one time--and he agreed-- it took all the resources of Google to replace my mother.   I realized that one day as I was walking to my computer to do a search.    So many, many times in the past I had stepped through the same threshold to go to my mother's room to ask her a question.   It didn't matter whether it was current events,  government, history, science, medical, definitions, pronunciations....it just didn't matter what, my mother knew the answers.  And I made that trip to her room often to get those answers.   One day I stepped through that doorway to go to my computer and -- déjà vu -- it came to me, it took Google to give me back what I had lost as my information resource.


My mother was there as a grandmother for my children.  She was a kind, compassionate, giving grandmother and because she lived with us, all those attributes were daily a part of my children's lives.   If mama didn't have time to do what they wanted done, they always had grandmother to turn to and she never failed to immediately respond to their requests.   (Sometimes she had to be surreptitious.  Maybe I had said they could not have a snack.  I don't think her attitude was one of defiance.  She just had such feeling for them that, when I was out of the picture, she'd be sure they didn't go to bed hungry.)   She was just there.  And it was her to give of herself.  That was her life.   So she always had time to listen to them talk about whatever they wanted to talk about.  She was not judgmental except to believe in good.   My children were very blessed to have such a kind and positive presence in their lives for so many years.   Jef was 22 when she died on July 3, 1995.  Josh was 13 (because she died before his December birthday).

So I have many wonderful memories of my mother.  But the memories I cherish the most are those that had to do with her love for the truth of the gospel.  She and I would sit and talk about spiritual things-- of how as a young person she was puzzled by the fact that there were so many churches in the world, how could you ever know which one was right?


She told me of how she met my dad who introduced her to the truth of the gospel.  At that time, he was not saved and, of course, she wasn't either.   He actually thought he could never be saved again, but he still loved what he had once been a part of.  So he related it to her.  She said, they'd sit and play cards, drink beer, and smoke and he'd tell her about the truths he knew of.   "I decided I didn't want to drink while he was telling me about this because I did not want my mind to be fuzzy," she said.  


Her journey to salvation was a long one.  It took much special intervention from God for her to understand this new perspective.  But when He got through to her and she finally came to understand what Jesus really came for and what He really did create here, she gave her whole heart to it.   She loved truth and she loved God's church and His people and she kept that love until the day she died.   I still remember sitting in her room and her sharing scriptures with me and my heart would thrill over the things she helped me to understand about the Bible.  And her positive, compassionate, and caring side were fed and enhanced by the example of Jesus Who came into this world as an antidote to the sin problem of the world and showed love and compassion to sinners.   


Thinking bad about anyone was foreign to my mother.  If I ever had a problem with the way someone treated me, I knew I was safe to share it with her because she always gave me an acceptable perspective on the situation.  That was a great aid to me in the keeping of my heart from bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, or any other bad attitude Satan is always waiting in the wings to impose upon us when some situation of life hurts us.   As a saved person, you never want to affect someone else's attitudes in a way that can be a problem for them so, even though you may be strongly bothered by someone else's actions, you endeavor to  keep it to yourself because you do not want to cause someone else a problem.  But my mother was not one that was affected by what you'd tell her.   She had had enough experience in life and was full of enough love and compassion and forgiveness herself, that I would talk to her knowing that no matter what it was that I had to deal with, it would not affect her in a bad way.  (I'm not saying this was something that came up often.  It's just that when it did, it was so good to just be able to open up and tell her exactly what happened without a fear that it would affect her attitudes.)  And, of course, she never talked to anyone, so you also knew it would go no further.   But the real benefit was that she'd give you sound thoughts to deal with it so that you could come away realizing how you needed to think about the situation, rather than how the devil would want you to.

I said "she never talked to anyone".  By that I mean, my mother was not a "social butterfly".  She pretty much kept to herself and her own world.  That is not to say that she didn't care about other people.  She cared IMMENSELY.  She just didn't get "into" small talk and social gatherings.   She grilled me about every person and what they were doing and how they were getting along whenever I would return from any function where the saints had gathered for fun and fellowship. But she HATED to be asked how SHE was doing.   She always focused on others.  Even down at the end of her life when people would come to visit her because of sickness, she'd be sure and turn the conversations back to them and what was going on with them.  She liked to just be at home.  And she LOVED the children who came to her room to be read to.


I could go on and on and on.  But the main thing I want to get across as I express my appreciation of my mother is that, as a person whose greatest desire is to hold on to my salvation and be filled with that which is right, she was one of the greatest aids to my spiritual success.  There were many things she taught me that are valuable for this life, but there is NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT than showing someone how to handle themselves so that they can be spiritually successful.  When this life is over, spiritual success is all that will be important.

I definitely believe that the influence of my mother has had a HUGE impact on my spiritual life.  I know anyone can be saved, but it certainly helps you to keep it after you get it when you have someone to guide you in  right thinking through the trying times of life.

Lately, I've thought much about the fact that it really doesn't matter how vast the universe is, nor does it matter what this world has to offer, when we pass over into that other realm of life, this physical realm is forever GONE.  It's over.  All of its magnificence,  all of its grandeur, all of its pleasures or all of its misery.  All gone. Done.  Over.  And REAL LIFE, unending life begins.   


What will a man give in exchange for his soul? What is more important?     And what greater good can a person do in this life than to be an aid to someone in the keeping of their soul?

 When you come to the understanding that Jesus Christ did not die to make it okay to sin, but instead to deliver us from sin, then you comprehend the importance of keeping your heart free from all those things that work to infiltrate it.   All the resources that help you to do that become your greatest gifts in this life.  I am SO THANKFUL for a mother that aided me in the keeping of my soul.    And all that she gave to me, the perspective, the thoughts, the example-- did not die when she did.  She is still an aid to the keeping of my heart.