On Mothers

Today is Mother’s Day.

Though I am no one’s mother, today is still a day to notice, as I was given the gift of a mother.

I know that sometimes she questions her mothering — what parent doesn’t, I suppose? But I wish that she wouldn’t. She has done so much for me; just in 2010 alone she flew here to help me recover from surgery and then again in April to help us move into this house. We were totally unpacked within a week, all thanks to her.

But the best thing she ever did for me was to tell me about Jesus. To read me his stories. Tell me his wisdom. Love me like he does. From before I can remember, I knew about Jesus. I sang songs to him, memorized verses, understood that he was a real person who really lived, and that he really died to save me.

I remember asking her why Jesus had to die; we were standing in the master bathroom in our Texas house and maybe I was 4 or 5. She told me that we were separated from God. That sin ruled the world. That Jesus died to pay the price;  to defeat the devil. And I remember being upset about it; upset that He had to die. I stomped the floor and told the devil that I hated him.

I was 12 when I asked Jesus to save me. I was a little girl, crying herself to sleep over the destruction of her family. God hears our cries. All of the Psalms are hearts crying out to God, both in worship and in lamentation.

And though I wandered, though I strayed, though I squandered what I had been given, I was protected in prayer during those wilderness years. I had a mother deep in prayer for my life. Where would I have been without it?

She once told me, back when I was a teenager, that she was praying for my future husband. Because he was a real boy out there in the world somewhere, and he needed her prayers.

So it’s amazing to me to realize that not only did God answer her prayers and bring me back to Him, but He answered those other prayers that were prayed over a little boy named Aaron, though she didn’t know his name.

My cousin Matt once told me that as Christians, it is our job, our duty if you will, to whisper the name of Jesus into our chldren’s ears from the moment they are born. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I may never have a child to raise up in the Lord, but I am where I am, and I am who I am, because I had a mother who did.