I miss my mom today. I am living on an island in the Caribbean and she is almost 1,000
miles away and I can’t just pop in to visit or have one of her delicious home
cooked meals. I can’t wrap my arms around her and enjoy one of her wonderful
hugs and tell her how much I love her. Gratefully, I can pick up a phone and hear her
sweet voice and will do so as soon as I finish capturing these thoughts of her and her influence in my life.
I have always loved my mother dearly but as a young child and
well into my teen years I never understood her (self-centered creature that I
was). It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that my eyes were open to the
sacrifices she made on behalf of her children, of the obstacles that she had to
overcome, and of the many anxious moments that me and my siblings put her through. I am
sorry to say that a lot of those gray hairs on her head were caused by me.
My mother exudes care and compassion. She probably wouldn’t
agree with me because she is her own biggest critic. But it’s those qualities that brought her to the point of returning to college while I was attending
college so she could pursue a career in nursing after her children were mostly grown and
moving on in the world. I can’t count the times that we would run into people
while out and about who had either had my mother as their nurse or someone in
their family had had her as their nurse. They always spoke so highly of her
loving care and the special time she took with her patients.
Those college years were years of healing in our
relationship that had gotten very stormy during my teen years. We became
college buddies; we commuted to college together and would often spend time together
studying or eating lunch in the school cafeteria. I am so thankful that God
gave me those years with my mom. It was during that time that I started to view
her as a person and came to admire her dedication to whatever task she had at
hand. I was always an average student in school – mostly because I just didn’t
apply myself. But in college I became an A-B student and even made the Dean’s
List a few times. I attribute that to her example and her encouragement.
My mom is a wonderful encourager. She knows how to speak into our lives words
that build us up and is one of our biggest fans. She is so proud of our
accomplishments in life, no matter how small, and she is not afraid to let the
world know how she feels.
She is a woman of faith. She loves Jesus and loves others
with that same love. Just ask the people in her small mountain church in North Carolina
or those in her small group from her Florida church, or the women that she
helps at the pregnancy center, or her friends, or her neighbors, or her grandchildren, or the myriad of people who have been touched by
her faith through her years of involvement in Cursillo and CFO! She and my dad
faithfully pray for their loved ones and are not afraid to share their faith or to take a stand for
what they believe in.
I sometimes wonder why at the stage in my life where I could
be free to spend lots of time with my parents, why God would call me to be so
far away from them. But I am here on the
mission field in large part because of what they have poured into me over the
years. They have helped to shape and mold me, they have been such an example to me of a life chasing after God.So, I miss my mom today – and lots of other days too – but I am so very grateful that she has and will continue to have great influence in my life.
I love you mom!
