Devotion 379 - Wonder

I wonder probably far too often what my mother would say.  I wonder what she would discuss with my little girls and I wonder what she would play with my youngest boy.

Of my four, only my oldest remembers her.  He had the gift of her care for five years.  At five, mother was too tired and too ill to care for him but the fingerprints on his soul;  I still see them each and every day.

His gentleness, his humor, his love of a comfy bed at night with the softest quilt in the house, she is unwrapped in those gifts.

I remember.  I remember the discussion one night after work.  How mother described how she tucked him in for nap.  “He likes that very soft blue blanket,” she said.  And that very night she went to the store and bought another one just in case it should be in the wash one day at nap-time.  She had the gift of generosity of the soul.

Some people give gifts, some write letters, some dispense encouragement like it was sweet candy, but mother, mother had a generosity of the soul.

She would reach down deep and then put on at least one of your emotional shoes so she could hear and feel how you were feeling.  She would never demand, never force regret, never lean in too hot or heavy.  

She would gently finger through your day and look for the joy.  Then if you still were not feeling the joy the way she saw it, she would write a prescription that was uncannily easy to fill.  She would make a cup of tea, suggest a wonderful read or tell you to take a nap or get “a good night’s sleep.”

She was a beacon for my weary soul.  I wonder what she would say seeing me run from here to there.  Seeing me mother four.  Seeing me help with ladies ministries which was her deep passion for so many years.  

I wonder.  I wonder if I do even anything half as well as she did. She had a way of not worrying and not fretting.  One of her favorite expressions was, “we can do that tomorrow.”  And she meant it.  There was always tomorrow, until there wasn’t.

Some weeks before she went home to heaven we found she could no longer speak.  I knew I wouldn’t miss the illness.  I wouldn’t miss the pain.  I wouldn’t miss seeing her struggle to walk and breathe and live.  But her voice.  I missed it like the very air around me.

I prayed for that one mercy, the one chance to hear her voice again. I had determined to spend every minute, to pour out my thoughts and dreams for her to hear.  Somehow sharing those thoughts meant she would live on as those thoughts and dreams blossomed.

I walked in the room.  I carried some little flowers to cheer her weary room.  And there hanging in the air for me to embrace was her familiar, “Hi Hon.”

It seemed as if time stood still.  For one glorious minute all was as it had always been.  Mercy.  He gives it abundantly.

Then I talked; she held my hand and nodded until we said our final goodbyes. 

I often think what would mother say, what would she think.  Strange how after a time, some twelve years, I have come to realize what she said and thought pointed me to exactly what Jesus said and taught.

And wondering what she would think and wondering if I might be pleasing her turns out to be a lot like trying to please Jesus.  There has not been one night that I have read to my children that I have not thought of her.  

There is not one time I have prayed for my children that I have not been reminded of her prayers for me.  Because everything that is so good, so right so lovely about life points to parents that love God because they point us to Him.

It has been a balm to my soul to know by pleasing Him, I would have pleased her and life goes on and memories do not hurt nearly so much.

And there is dressing to the wound knowing the children that do not remember her today will know her in heaven.  They will get to hear her laugh and they will never know the pain she endured or the tears she shed nor the sacrifices she made.

The legacy we impart of faith and family points to the mamas and the daddies that have gone on before.

Sometimes we have to glance at the end to focus a light on the present.  We are not doing anything new.  We look at history to figure out our story.  We look at the characters that have shaped us and we fold in their wisdom.  And if they could look back and tell us their inspiration, one name would resound, Jesus.

He is the thread.  He is the tapestry.  He is the covering and the beauty of life.

And loved ones suddenly don’t seem so very far away, because they are with Him and He miraculously is with us.