Mom

This post is a little different than usual. Yes, God is still teaching me, but in a different way today.

Today my mom would have turned 70 years old. I try to imagine what she would have looked like as a 70 year old, but then it's not to hard, because she was diagnosed with scleroderma at the age of 43 and died at the age of 45 because of this disease. In those two years it aged her body about 30 years.

Because she swelled up so much from the disease, she wasn't able to use her hands a lot and it was difficult to walk. She couldn't really reach her feet so she had to wear shoes that she could slip into. Buttons and zippers became to difficult for her hands, so pants and skirts with elastic waistbands and shirts that could easily be pulled over her head became her wardrobe.

Looking back on her life, I see many things. Her parents got saved later in life and her dad became a minister. She made a profession at the age of 14. Life was good.

At the age of 17 she met a man she fell in love with, Frank, my dad. But he was Catholic and she was not. So they decided to leave religion out of their lives. She turned her back on God. The only concession they both made was that all the boys would be baptized into the Catholic Church and all the girls would be baptized into her church. I was the only girl; there were three boys.

Years went by and my mom just wasn't comfortable with us not going to church. So when I was about 8 years old we started going to different churches, what I called "church hopping". Dad wouldn't go, so mom took me and my two brothers (the youngest didn't arrive for another year). My brothers and I disliked all the churches we attended: too many rules, to boring, no kids we knew. There was always an excuse. She finally gave up.

About a year later my cousins invited me to a little chapel. They were trying to win a Sunday School contest by bringing the most friends. So I went. This church was different. They didn't ask for money. They had cool snacks before Sunday School - DONUTS! and everyone was really nice. It was there that I heard for the first time the true Gospel. I understood being a sinner, and I heard how Jesus Christ, God, had come to this earth to take my punishment and die for me. I prayed a simple prayer believing this and was saved.

Why take this time to tell you about me when I'm writing about my mom? Because it's an important part of my mom's life. You see, those folks would come and pick me and my brothers up and take us to church. They loved us and my parents but never put pressure on my parents or on us to come. They just loved us.

I began to change and my mom began to see the changes in me and the way these people loved us. She eventually started attending. When I was 18, I was teaching a small Sunday School class, but was leaving for a year's mission trip and needed someone to take over my class. I asked my mom. I remember she said she didn't feel capable of doing it, but decided to do it anyway. It changed her life.

When I came back that was "her" class. She had also begun to meet with some of the other women for a Bible study. She began to grow in leaps and bounds. She strove to get out of debt because she felt she was dishonoring her LORD by being in debt. She stayed home from church for a whole year, because my dad told her not to go. She felt she needed to submit to him because that's what the LORD said in his Word. She continued to have the ladies Bible study in her home which was okay with my dad, he just didn't want her going to church. At the end of the year he told her she could go back because by her staying home, he knew she loved him.

When she first began to get sick, she was confused and tried to figure out what God was doing. But she eventually saw this as part of God's plan for her life. Because of the aging of her body, she was now able to relate to the senior women in a very special way. She understood their struggles, their aches, their disappointments. A whole new world had opened up to her.

Though there were opportunities for ministry, there were also very hard times. I remember seeing her at the dining room table just crying because of the pain. But she would begin to pray and her face would change. I knew the pain had not gone away but her eyes were not on her anymore, but on the One she truly loved.

Her last month of life was spent in the hospital in Intensive Care. Her internal organs were shutting down and there was nothing the doctors could do for her. The last time I saw her she was in a coma. She had been that way for three days. I was the last one to talk to her. I told her it was okay; she could leave us now. God would take care of us. That was at 9:00 pm; she went to be with her LORD at 2:00 am.

Through the years I've wondered why the LORD took her when He did. She was so young. She only got to see 3 of her 10 grandchildren. One of my sister-in-laws got saved because of my mom. But after mom died, she and my brother divorced. I often thought, "If mom had been here, they probably wouldn't have divorced. She would have encouraged them to stick it out."

But then I realize it's very easy to rely upon a person and put the burden on them. God doesn't want us to do that. He has to be our Burden-Bearer. My family has gone through lots of ups and downs since Mom has been gone. We definitely miss her. But God has done amazing things without her here.

My dad got saved. I didn't think it would ever happen, but it did. Actually right before she died. And he's growing in the LORD. It's been hard for him, but he's gone on, he's found a lovely woman and married her. They will be celebrating their 9th anniversary this year. He sent T a card the other day that was so spiritually encouraging about God being in control and His timing. I was so surprised, humbled and so very, very thankful.

All three of my brothers made professions as children, but the youngest has really made a commitment to the LORD. He and his wife were baptized and are really striving to raise their children in the "admonition of the LORD." The other two are reading their Bibles and no, they are not where "I" would like them to be, but God is in control of them and for that I'm thankful.

Though I have missed my mom and wished she could be here to have seen so many things and people, like all three of my children (she only saw J until he was 6 months old), I know that she will see each one of them in perfection with no flaws. She now has met one of her great-grandchildren whom I haven't even met. I would not take her away from her First Love. But I am so thankful for her example: for the way she lived her life in loving her LORD, her husband, her family, fellow believers and the lost as well (because of her witness her neighbor got saved - a "hardened feminist" - the neighbor's words for herself, not mine :) ).

I miss my mom, but I look forward to the day when I will see her again. But then she'll have to wait, because there's Somebody Else I want to see first.