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Grace for Mother’s Day

May14

I wake and move into this day slowly. It’s Mother’s Day, the one day of the year I determine to nurture my soul and treat myself with kindness. I move at my own pace, choosing the activities and the lunch to be pick up at a local restaurant. I meet the day with mixed emotions, and Sweet William is tender with my heart.

The Spirit draws me to Lamentations 3, a chapter that contains cherished verses, ones I turn to often, a place where the Lord encouraged me many times. The center of the chapter declares the compassionate and faithful Lord I serve, He who sustains me in all the seasons of life. He is stability in changing circumstances, the peace-speaker in my storm. He gives unspeakable joy and showers me with blessings daily. His Presence is faithfully with me and in me.

There is trouble in this world and in my circle of living. When I focus on it, the losses, pain, suffering and sadness, my soul is downcast indeed. If I stay there long, I spiral downward, anxiety consuming my heart and mind. But that is no way to enjoy the abundant life.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.

Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore,
I will wait in hopeful expectation for Him.“

“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
Lamentations 3:19-26

Ah, these verses remind me to look at the goodness of the Living God in my life. His love surrounds me every day, all day. His compassion is His glory revealed to Moses in His covenant Name, Yahweh. His lovingkindness took on flesh and walked among us, showing us the love of the Father.

Calling to mind the faithfulness of my Father turns my attention toward Him who fills the hungry with good things and satisfies my longing soul. I need that reminder today and every day.

Hope is not a pie-in-the-sky wishing on a star but an expectation that God will do what is best and provide what I need. He has done that in so many ways through my life. So. Many. Ways.

Hoping and waiting, in quiet expectation for His salvation, that is what I do today. And therefore, my soul is at rest and finds peace.

The years of spending Mother’s Day with only Sweet William changed my perspective. I have less angst as I choose the course of this day. Twelve years ago it was different, experienced with our table full of family, food, stories, laughter, and the joyful presence of those I love most. Death and distance made it different. Different is hard, until it doesn’t feel so different anymore. Until it becomes the new normal, and I adjust yet again.

During those twelve years of adjusting, the Lord has filled me full to overflowing with dear ones who send their love by text this morning. They span all ages, and some say I am the “mom” close by. I treasure those relationships, giving God thanks for such gifts. This is His good work. Sweet William and I are blessed by those who want to spend some of their valuable time with us. With us? And how has that happened except by grace poured out. My cup runneth over.

I will look forward to a conversation with my beloved son this afternoon. Mothering him is the great joy of my life. I would not haved missed being his mom for the world.

I think of the women who mothered me, the ones who nurtured and cared, who asked hard questions and encouraged me to be strong, the ones who believed in me when I didn’t believe I had what it takes. I stand because they held me up and cheered me on.

I will count my blessings today, for they are many. I will remember the goodness of my heavenly Father. I will hope expectantly for God to do what He does best. Be the Captain of the Lord’s hosts. Be the Redeemer. Be Mighty God. Be the Good Shepherd and the Running Father. Be Salvation, Peace and Provider. Be my Strong Tower of Defense.

He is all and in all, and all things hold together because of Him. He is holding me together. I will wait for Him. I will rejoice and be glad for He has been faithful to me.

Thursday thoughts

Jul9

I heard someone say this week that the life expectancy of an American is 78 years old. I had to google that and found that in 2018 life expectancy was indeed 78.5 according to World Development Indicators.

My eyes widened, and I thought, “Oh my, 78 is not that far away.”

Last year when I reached a milestone decade, I faced it with some trepidation. The day came and went and I didn’t feel any different. So much for that.

” . . . that life picked up speed, then most of it was gone — made you breathless really.” — Elizabeth Strout

Another birthday pages through my calendar, and I have mixed feelings. I suppose it’s my age. I think deeply about life, death, today, and what’s left of my tomorrows.

I remember past birthdays, some joyful and some a little sad. Some were memorably celebrated and some slipped quietly by.

When I was a child a July birthday offered possibilities, outdoor activities and swim parties with cousins and friends. We ate ice cream and watermelon, letting the juice run down our arms and spitting seeds in the yard. At this age I think it’s so hot, too hot to go anywhere or do anything. I feel like a party pooper to my own fiesta.

When my mother was alive, she made my birthday important. An only child, cherished and loved, she knew how to make a gift special, to make a day fun. I especially miss my mother on my birthday.

“No matter what peoples’ lives might hold . . . still and all people were compelled to celebrate because they knew, somehow, in their different ways, that life was a thing to celebrate.” — Elizabeth Strout

I’ve heard this quote from Annie Dillard’s book, The Writing Life, “How we live our days is, of course, how we live our lives.” And it seems so simple. The dailiness of living, the tasks of keeping a home, the going to and from work, the raising of children and loving a family, the art and beauty we create become the life we build. Day upon day, we make the life we have.

But what of the things that happen to us that are out of our control, like illness, death, choices others make that affect us? How we deal with it, or even choose not to deal with it, also becomes the life we have.

“All life events are formative. All contribute to what we become, year by year, as we go on growing. As my friend the poet Kenneth Koch one said, ‘You aren’t just the age you are. You are all the ages you ever have been.‘ ” — Mr. Rogers.

Daily I make choices that impact myself and others, forming the life I am building. I am more thoughtful these days to my calling, my art, and my contribution to the world. I understand a little better the gifts I’ve been given by my Creator and how to use them for His glory.

When I was younger, I was not good at saying no to any and all requests. I wanted to please people and said yes more than I probably should have. Now I understand better what it’s like to move in the flow of my giftedness. Trudging along in a place where I’m not called can be drudgery.

“Numbering my days isn’t about computing days but rather about drawing me to attentiveness. Life on earth is a brief sojourn–brief but not unimportant, brief but not inconsequential.” — Jean Fleming

In the last few years, I’ve compiled a list of my ten commandments (not to be compared to The Ten Commandments), a guide for the rest of my life. The first one is Be Peggy. Be who I am, not who someone wants me to be, not what culture dictates or how trends and styles try to mold me.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made by my Creator, an individual with DNA like no one else. I insult the One who formed my innermost being if I continue to try to be someone I am not. It’s taken awhile to learn this.

The poem called Grab Your Purple Hat describes the stages of a woman’s life from age 3 to age 80. Age 70 says she “Looks at herself and sees wisdom, laughter and ability, goes out and enjoys life.”

Yes, that is the woman I want to be, wisdom gained through years and experience, laughing much and using my abilities. I want to enjoy this one beautiful life, welcome people with open heart and listen to their stories. I want to love and be loved. I want to give myself away until my final breath.

“I believe we grow old only when we stop growing. Inner stagnation leads to death before dying.” — Lois Mowday Rabey

Years ago I cut a page from a magazine with artwork by Mary Engelbreit. It is an old woman gazing at her reflection in a mirror and seeing herself as the young girl she used to be. The caption reads: “We are always the same age inside.” Isn’t that how I exactly how I feel, not in my aching bones or my aging flesh, but the real inner me?

My beginning was ordained by a good Father and He watched as I was formed in the darkness. I believe He has purposed my ending and all the in-between days, guided by His Spirit. There is nothing to fear as the years add one upon another.

This is my life. I hope I leave something good behind. I plan to walk the path, holding to my heavenly Father’s hand, and enjoy the ride.

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. — Psalm 139:3 KJV

Sunday grace

Feb17

I’m such a saver of memories.

I’m a keeper, this I know for sure. I don’t swing to the side of hoarding, but my family will tell you I hold onto things. Like the grandchildren’s animal-shaped sippy cups, though the three of them are practically adults. Like the dolls I played with when I was a child. Like our son’s cub scout shirt. Like my dad’s hammer and my mother’s girlhood autograph book.

And then there are the cards people sent. These are difficult to part with. They hold deep sentiment and recollections of people who have been important to me.

I have a small file cabinet in the upstairs office. It contains things saved: trip maps used recently, Bible studies I’ve taught, my high school report cards and resumes of my work history, among many other things, filed alphabetically of course. Those drawers hold pieces of my life, and somehow remind me who I am as much as the photos organized in boxes.

I determined I would go through the file cabinet while this year is still new and throw out what I can, to lighten the load of stuff kept. And there were piles of papers that went into the trash.

Occasionally I will come upon something special. As I was finishing this final organizing project, I found a 3-by-5 inch lined index card with a simple eight line poem written in my mother’s handwriting. She’s been gone from this earth for 36 years, but I know her penmanship well.

She was such an example of faith to me. I watched her live it out through many hard places. As she faced death, I asked her if she was afraid. She immediately replied “No.” She had learned that Jesus is faithful through her years, and she didn’t worry about her future.

There is no author to whom I can give credit for this simple verse. But it is worth sharing.

Doubt sees the obstacles
Faith sees the way.
Doubt sees the darkest night.
Faith sees the day.
Doubt dreads to take a step.
Faith soars high.
Doubt questions, Who believes?”
Faith answers, “I.”

Sunday grace.

Remembering February 11

Feb10

I started looking through the photos this week as I do whenever I think about organizing the boxes of pictures. I get a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of bringing order to a hundred years worth of family images.

When I come to the old black and whites, I linger long. There is one of my maternal grandparents looking young and sassy, and then years later they are with their three young children at the beach. I gaze at faces in sepia, my newly-wed parents, in the flower of their youth, and it’s hard to imagine them that way.

There are pictures of my dad in his army uniform and small portraits of mother that she regularly sent to dad when he was overseas during World War 2. I think how handsome he was, how beautiful she was. I only know those young people by photograph, and I wonder what life was like for them with their dreams and plans still ahead of them.

 

With those faces in the back of my mind, it’s not surprising to me that I walked down another memory lane this morning.

I’ve been reading the Psalms during February, and today I landed in chapter 56. I love the songs of David, Asaph, and the sons of Korah. In deeply troubling times, I have lived in the Psalms, the words reflecting my anxious heart and my dark emotions. Always, the writer points me heavenward, encouraging me to praise the God of mercy who is full of compassion and loving kindness.

This morning, this verse made me pause – Selah – and think:

What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.   — Psalm 56:3

The lyrical King James language is so familiar and how I quote the verse to myself. It is the language of the Scriptures I grew up with and learned to love. Since then I have expanded my library to include lots of versions and paraphrases, all with the aim of understanding what God is wanting to say to me.

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” I’ve been afraid, more times than I care to admit. One particular year comes to the forefront this morning. It was 1983, the year my mother took to a hospital bed in the living room of her and dad’s home, the one with red carpet on the floor. Mother loved red, and she had her way with this house.

Dad was a builder and over the years of their marriage, he built and sold our house four times that I remember. The red-carpeted-living-room house was to be the final home, and mother was a happy homemaker in it.

My mother, who had never been seriously sick, became gravely ill. When there was nothing else to do but make sure she was comfortable, we did all we could to see that she was, surrounding her with our presence. Friends and family filled the house during the early months of 1983, bearing food and fellowship, prayers and support.

My dad made gallons of coffee all throughout the day, standing at the gas stove stirring grounds into almost-boiling water. It was his old-fashioned way of brewing, and I suppose it gave him something to do. Coffee was our drink of comfort and he doled it out generously.

My mother loved to laugh and have fun. She was a warm and welcoming kind of person, inviting people into her life, loving them like they belonged. She was a woman full of faith in her Savior, and she had a voice that could “bring the Spirit down” as we used to say in our church. People loved to hear her sing, and everyone had their favorite song request.

As her life ebbed away, and that strong, vibrant voice became a whisper, she never seemed to waiver in her confidence in the God who was the subject of her songs. The words she sang so often were still true for her.

Sometimes when my faith would falter, and no sunlight I can see
I just lift my eyes to Jesus, and I whisper “Pilot me.”
“Fear thou not for I’ll be with thee.  I will still thy Pilot be.
Never mind the tossing billows.  Take my hand and trust in Me.”

Like those who experience heartbreak, I struggled with questions and doubts, not understanding why all this was happening. Why weren’t my prayers being answered in the way I wanted? I was grappling with my own faith, and fear was a companion.

When mother died on February 11 , dad and I were devastated, as were family members and those who felt like family. We wandered like zombies through many days and weeks, wondering how to live without the person who brought joy, laughter and love to our lives. But time passed as we tried to learn how to exist without her.

One day, I happened upon mother’s wallet. I opened it and saw her driver’s license. Those pictures are never good, but this time it was precious to me. Upon further looking, I found a strip of paper folded inside the wallet. There in mother’s familiar script were the words of Psalm 56:3, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Then I remembered that she has written that verse on paper and tucked it into the strap of her bra, wearing it like a badge of courage during the days of uncertainty.

She had faced fear too. In her love for us, she tried to be brave, but she had been afraid. It was astonishing to me at first, but I recognized my mother’s humanity in that moment. She had been my rock, unwavering, unfaltering, always there for me with a listening ear and words of wisdom. Looking at her handwriting on a scrape of paper I saw that she was much like me, me with my with questions and struggles and my grasping for faith when it is hard.

What made the moment profound was the understanding that she had taken hold of the only One who could calm her fears, and she learned to trust even in her fear. And here was an answer for me in my own weakness.

My heavenly Father knows I am prone to frailty and fear. He speaks “Fear not” to me and asks me to trust Him when I can’t see what He is doing. His provision of grace through Jesus gives strength when I have none.  He runs to my cry of Abba Father.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of mother’s death. That day long ago is forever etched in my mind. Grief overwhelmed me then, and I didn’t think I could go on. But I was strengthened by grace, the same grace that strengthened my mother as she walked out her calling on this earth, the same grace available to each of God’s children.

I’ve learned a lot in the years since that heart-wrenching day, learned that God is trustworthy in the darkness; that He has a bigger plan than I can comprehend; that He is good and showers us with daily blessings; that He fills the hungry with good things; that He loves the unloveable and watches for the prodigal to come home; that He gives a second chance, again and again and again.

I have found God to be faithful through my years, every single time. And when I am afraid, I can trust in Him.

 

 

 

 

Sunday grace

May14

Dear Father in Heaven,

Thank you for the women, for the ones who touched my life and left their fingerprints.

For the women who lived before, fighting battles and suffering long that I might live free and equal, and be considered a person and not property.

For the women in Scripture who stood tall and brave in the face of adversity, who spoke prophesies and championed soldiers, who stood between kingly decrees and their children, who faithfully followed in terrifying conditions and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.

For the women who taught me through word and example, who told Bible stories and expounded the Truth, who lived lives of grace and mercy, who were faithful to their husbands and loved their babies.

For the women who saw my untamed talents and the beginnings of my gifts and nurtured them in me, smiling their encouragement and applauding my progress.

For the women who authored books that made me laugh and made me think, who pricked my heart and seemed to know my story, who did not condemn but showed me how to move toward healing.

For the women who were my grandmothers, leaving their impression on my parents, passing along the inheritance and blessing of their goodness.

For my aunts who loved me and treated me like one of their own.

For cousins who have been like sisters.

For my dear mother, my mother-in-law, my step-mother, each one so different yet profoundly impacting my life.

For my one daughter-in-love who continues to teach me about loving  a husband and training her own brood to fly.

For the friends who have become like family and kindred spirits, and for daughters-of-my heart who have their own special place.

For the women, O Lord, who have been your vessels and have poured into my life, who opened their heart and welcomed me into their circle, who have laughed with me and cried with me, who have held my hand and hugged my neck, who have prayed for me and inspired me to take courage.

For these women, daughters of Eve, tough and tender, warriors all, leaving a legacy of love and devotion, being the beautiful crown of creation and housing the light of Jesus. They cause me to give You thanks on this Mother’s Day.

Thy have left their fingerprints on my life.

Sunday grace.

 

The second Sunday in May

May4

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My email is full of blog notifications whose subjects are Mother’s Day. Advertisers on TV are promoting jewelry and other gifts for moms. It’s natural.

When one’s own mother has been dead and gone for over 30 years and the one and only son lives 600 miles away with no chance of being with either of them, Mother’s Day looses it’s luster.

I mailed notes this week to people I care about who are missing a mother this year. Death snatches those we love, and we are left holding our broken hearts and holding in the tears. What do you do with swelling droplets in the eyes when the rest of the world celebrates?

Friends face another sort of day with a mother whose memory is fading, who may not remember in the next hour the call, the gift, or the visit. The scenario delivers an all-together different kind of heartbreak.

It is always the same. Holidays take on different meanings depending on the circumstance we are in. I have celebrated joyfully, and I have prayed that the day would be over.

Death and distance change our view of life. What we had is a memory. We look back and cherish the communion and conversation, heart joined with heart.

Sometimes we look forward wondering how we can go on when it will never be that way again.

We can’t go back to what was. Life is a constant flux, a continual motion and swirl. Treasuring today may be the bravest way to face tomorrow.

If your mother is gone or her memory is not what it used to be, give yourself grace and occasion to cry. Remember the good and be grateful for her.

If your mother is living, go spend time with her if at all possible. Kiss her check and hug her tight. Pick a bouquet of field flowers. Touch her hand and look into her eyes.

Call her if she is far away, and talk to her about your life. She wants to know. Send a note recalling a memory that brings a smile to both your faces.

Tell your mother she did something right. Because we mommas are always wondering about that.

She’s your mother. She lived so much of her life with you in mind. She gave up a lot for you to have what you needed. She loves you like no one else can. She thinks of you always, and prays for you often.

Your voice is the one she wants to hear.

Though the apron strings may have been severed many years ago, her heart strings are still attached. They cannot be torn away.

She’s your mother. Thank God for her.

 

For all the women

May7

Mother’s Day blogging is upon us.  I am reading them this week.  I’ve written my share.  What else is there to say?

As a mother of a grown up son, I long to hear the words, “well done.”  I want to hear that I did a good job, or at least that I didn’t leave permanent physiological damage.

We women are known for comparing ourselves with other women.  We wonder if we are keeping up, if we are good enough at this high calling, or are we failing at the most important task of our entire lives?

Looking back, I see lots of places for a do-over.  But life does not offer a rewind.

Perhaps that’s why we enjoy grandmothering so much.  We get a little bit of a chance to do things differently, realizing that some things we thought were so important just were not.

I miss my own mother on Mother’s Day.  I always will.  When she was alive, I tried to tell her how much I loved her, how I appreciated her role in my life.  I hope I did it enough so that she felt like she had done her work well.

Mothering is the most rewarding and sometimes the most heartbreaking of jobs.  We celebrate and we cry.  We hold close and then we let go.  We teach and instruct only to come to the place when we must keep our mouths shut.

It’s not easy being a good mother.

Yet is it the way God planned for children to be raised, nurtured, loved, trained, and set off on their own as young adults, just so the cycle will repeat itself.

God’s tender compassionate heart is reflected in mothers.  They don’t give up on their children.  They don’t turn away from them when they make mistakes, end up in jail, turn out badly.  They keep loving, keep praying, keep hoping for better days.

I am thankful for women who have poured their love into my life in so many ways. While some will have the title of “mother,” others will not, but their hearts still mother in ways only women can.  God made woman that way.  She is unique, a creature like no other.

William Ross Wallace said it well:

Woman, how divine your mission,
Here upon our natal sod;
Keep—oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Where would we be without the love of mothers, the love of good women?  Blessed are they.

mother andbaby hands

Stillness in trials

Nov25

A young friend is dealing with harsh realities and the changing of her normal.  She is learning stillness in this trial.  Her email revealed her pain but it could not hide her faith.

As I consider her place, my thoughts go back to the year 1982, the Thanksgiving when my mother’s cancer diagnosis tookMother in 1982 over our lives.  She sat at the table that year barely eating anything because she had trouble breathing, but she didn’t want us to know it.  She didn’t want to spoil our holiday.  That was my mother.

Before the weekend was over, she was in the hospital having fluid drained from her lungs, the first of several times during the coming holidays.  It was the beginning of the end of her earthly life.  And it was the beginning of the changing of my normal. The changing of my world.

I could not imagine my life without my mother.  I was 32, and he was still my best friend.

That Thanksgiving ushered in a change in me, and it sent me on a search. I had to face all the things I thought I knew about prayer and faith and believing.  My mother was dying, and I could not change that no matter how hard I tried.

It was a journey of several months that took me to God’s words about faith, about trusting Him even when I don’t get what I desperately want.  I learned in that process that the greatest faith is trusting Him even though.  Even though the fig tree is bare.  Even though the cattle stall is empty.  Even though the fields do not produce a crop. Even then, He is God and He is good and He is deserves my worship.

It was one of the hardest trials of my life and a lesson of stillness, resting the results with the Father who loves me and knows what is best for me and for those I love.

I try to figure out what others need and pray that for them.  I ask for my needs when I pray.  I am specific and sometimes I am vague.  I often feel like my prayers are feeble.  Yet I find peace in this: God knows what I need before I ask; the Holy Spirit intercedes for me according to the will of God; and Jesus my Great High Priest, has gone beyond the veil of the Holiest place to provide mercy and grace for every need.

One of my favorite authors, Jan Karon who writes about a small town called Mitford, often quotes in her book about “the prayer that never fails.”  She is referencing these simple words, “The will of the Lord be done.”

Some may disagree, that instead we should utter commanding prayers and believe to receive what we want.  I think the pathway to stillness is trusting a mighty God who can do the impossible and who will do what is best for me, for Sweet William, for my Tulsa family too-far-away, and for other family and friends.

I still get specific when I pray.  More often these days, I finish with “Your will be done in all of it.”  In my feeble way of expressing myself, God sees the deeper needs and knows how to accomplish His purpose in it all.

Your will be done, Father.  If it was good enough for Jesus, then it must be good enough for me.

Today  I am listening to this:

Thoughts of women and Mother’s Day

May7

I anticipate Mother’s Day with mixed emotions.

Being a mother can only be described as one of the greatest adventures of my life.  When I was pregnant, I wanted to be the very best mom with the near perfect child, and I really thought I knew how I was going to accomplish that.

Then the child was born.  Everything changed – my life, my focus, my time, my energy, and especially my ideas of what it is to be a mother.  

A child consumes you and changes you in ways no one can prepare you.  The cord that connects mother to child during pregnancy may be cut at birth, but the cord that connects a mother’s heart to the heart of her child can never, ever be severed.  Her love is bound to that child in such a way that even God showed a comparison of His love to that of a mother.

Isaiah 49:15 says “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb?  Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you.”

So at Mother’s Day, I celebrate the privilege and joy of being a mother. 

But . . . the week before Mother’s Day I begin to miss my own mother once again.   She died early in 1983, and despite the year or more of deep mourning, I have adjusted to living my life without her – not really gotten over it but adjusted to it.   The months following her death, however, I could not picture how I would live my life without the woman who gave birth to me, who modeled motherhood, who gave me wise counsel, and who loved me like only a mother can.

But I did adjust.  I moved past my grief.  I allowed other women into my heart, both older and younger.  And I have become richer for it.

Still, on Mother’s Day, the memories of my own dear mother suddenly break into my thoughts like an unexpected visitor.  My thoughts return to my childhood, my teen years, my young adulthood, and my own motherhood and how I am becoming more and more like her as the years go by.  I cannot separate the happiness of celebrating from the sadness of loss.  It will always be so, I suppose.

Because of my loss, at Mother’s Day I remember women who are grieving their own mothers’ passing.  I know of two women whose mother died within this year.  Their hearts are heavy, like mine was in May 1983.  I hurt with them.  I want to acknowledge their loss and let them know someone understands how they feel this year.

Then there are the women who have miscarried and will grieve the loss of the child they should have been holding, either in their womb or in their arms.  I hurt with them also, because I remember that grief as well.  Having a hope of life snuffed out too soon is difficult to bear, especially at Mother’s Day.

In a similar place are the women who mourn a child they did hold, perhaps watched grow up, even to become an adult, but like a candle extinguished, life was cut short.  It never feels right for a parent to outlive her child.  I’ve not experienced this grief, cannot imagine the deep well of sorrow this brings.  I have friends who deal with it, who mention the child’s name and tell a story so others will remember.   I know the child lives in her heart if not on this earth.  For this woman, Mother’s Day may rip open the wound. 

There is still another group of women I think of at this holiday.  They are the ones who long to be mothers, but for reasons known only to God, they have been denied.  In some ways they have adjusted, like I adjusted to my mother’s death.  We must adjust, or we stagnate in an unhealthy place, where productive life ceases, where sorrow has made its permanent home and joy has moved out.

But if I perceive their hidden tears behind smiles, I think they have the same mixed emotions that flow through me, like high water flooding its banks.  They desire to celebrate in a way they cannot. 

” . . . The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces . . . ” Isaiah 25:8.

I wish all mothers a blessed day on Sunday.  You have been given the gift of life and of training souls for the kingdom of God.  What an awesome task.   May God be with you through it all.

I pray for cleansing tears for those of you who grieve the loss of your own mother or for the loss of the precious child you hold close to your heart.  Tears are healing.  We must give them release to flow.  There will be a brighter day and a day of reunion when God will wipe away all tears and there will be no more death.  Hope for it.

And for those who have been denied the title “mother,” I dare say you are nurturing people all along your pathway.  You may not even dream of how many are blessed by knowing you, are warmed by your love and concern, and are honored to call you friend, aunt, step-mother, sister, foster-mom, teacher, neighbor . . .  Their will be songs in Heaven for you, “Thank you for giving to the Lord.  I am a life that was changed.” 

We are women, all of us.  Placed in the heart of every woman is the desire to nurture, to love, to care for, and to protect.  God allows us to do that in so many wonderful and unexpected ways.  He brings people along to walk the journey with us on purpose, people who need what we can give, people who will be touched by our womanhood.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you precious women.  You are dear to my heart.  And even more so to the heart of your God.

Genesis 3:20 – “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.”

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A little story about someone I love

Feb11

Because February is the month of love ~ 

mother2I think of those who have loved me much. Today, February 11, is the anniversary of my mother’s death 28 years ago.  I can’t help but think of her as Valentine’s Day approaches because we put her earthly shell in the ground on that day.  The only flowers that year were the ones around her casket.  It was a hard day.

But instead of feeling sad about my loss, let me tell you about this precious woman I called “Mother.”

Charline Lockard Rayhill was 27 years old when I was born.  That was considered to be late in her day when most women were in their teens or early twenties when they had their first child.

Mother was such a wise parent. I suppose she learned it from her mother, Bertha Ray Lockard, who had been a school teacher before she married and began raising three children of her own.  I am told Grandma Lockard had the wisdom of Solomon when it came to people skills.  And I’ve heard some interesting stories.  One of Grandma’s favorite quotes was “Consider the source,” when dealing with people who did and said stupid things.

It would only be natural that my mother would imitate her own mother’s parenting ways.

Mother was a strict disciplinarian while being a totally loving parent.  She had the proper balance between the two.  She let me know what was expected of me and then expected me to follow her instructions.  I can remember a few times when as a little girl I was misbehaving or talking during church.  All mother had to do was look at me with her dark brown eyes, and I knew I’d better straighten up.

 Mother’s love was so unconditional I never questioned it.  I knew from her words and her actions that she loved me even when I did something wrong or hurt her in some way.

Mother loved my dad.  She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind to him or fail to express her opinion even when it differed from his.  But she was loyal to the death and would defend dad in a heartbeat.  She showed me what it really means to be a good wife, one in whom her husband trusts.  She did him good all the days of her life.

After I married, she became “Mom” to my Sweet William.  He has told me how he loved talking to her early on Saturday mornings.  She was a good listener, and they became buddies.

When I became pregnant, mother said she was not going to act like other  grandmothers did, being silly about their grandchildren and showing off pictures all the time.  Little did she know what her baby grandson would do to her heart.  She became so enraptured by this tiny boy child that she became “one of those grandmothers” she said she would never be.

Mother loved to give gifts.  One year at Christmas she bought and wrapped many small scatter pins (what we called them in the 1960s).  My stocking was full of little Christmas packages that year.

No one enjoyed telling a funny story much better than my mother.  She used to tell “The peanut butter story” to the family again and again upon request.  Her sister, Doris, would laugh at it every time as if she were hearing it for the first time.  Mother always tried to pull off a joke on April 1st, telling some tall tail, then laughing and saying, “April fools.”

Mother opened her arms and her heart to others.  There were the ladies of her Tuesday morning Bible study who came faithfully each week.  They loved her like she was their kin.  Even the young men whom my dad taught in Bible study or counseled, more often than not gave her a big bear hug.  She was a spiritual mother to many, giving away her love and her wise words.

Ah, I wish everyone could have a mother like mine.  There would be fewer dysfunctional homes and far fewer people spending their adult lives trying to overcome their childhoods.

I loved my mother.  I knew she loved me.  That’s what every child needs.