The Day After Mother's Day

Mom

   There are those who say that most of our holidays were invented by the greeting card industry. I say that some people should be celebrated, even if we are told when to do it. Yesterday was Mother's Day- a day set apart to remember and honor our mother. 

   My Mom died twenty five years ago. As I think about her, I remember things... her laugh, the way she played The Tennessee Waltz on the piano, her chess pies and Sunday roast. I remember watching her read her Bible as she planned her Sunday School lesson. And I remember her job. My Mom worked for our church. One of her many tasks was designing and printing the church bulletin. As I remember I realize- I am doing a similar job today, except I use a computer. Mom used her hands. She typeset on a typewriter, cut and pasted (with scissors and rubber cement) clip art and text columns, shot a negative, burned offset plates with an arc light, operated an offset press and hand-fed the printed sheets through a folding machine. Today I typeset on a Mac using Indesign, select images from my digital camera or download them from Shutterstock, manipulate images using Photoshop, import the images into Indesign, layout the cover in Illustrator, export the finished document as a pdf, attach the pdf to email, push a button, and the 80-page digital ministry magazine is sent worldwide... without leaving my chair. I smile at the wonder of it all and ask myself, "What would Mom think about all this?" No more rubber cement, no more ink under fingernails or cleaning rollers or smelly solvents. Just a computer and coffee.

   I remember going by the church to see my Mom one day after school. She had just finished printing the bulletin- The Voice of Appeal. As she showed it to me, I remember the look on her face, the look that says, "I did that."

   

   Thank you Mom. Your gentle spirit imparted a picture of humility to your little boy, a picture of what it means to be a friend of God.

Mother's Day

Mom and Pop

Early 1950's

   This is a story I have told multiple times, but good stories are timeless, and this is a good story; it begins with a tree, a Dogwood sapling moved from the wild to my Mom and Pop's frontyard. Transplanting trees is risky business and God, in His kindness, allowed the young tree to survive the winter. But the kindness of God is sometimes hard to understand because He knows something we do not- He knows the end of the story.

   While that Dogwood was taking root, my Mom was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, the most aggressive malignant brain tumor found in humans. One thing my Mom and Pop taught me in my youth is the power of prayer. Prayer changes things... prayer moves the heart of God. From the moment we received news of her diagnosis we began praying for healing, but healing did not come. As Mom's conditioned worsened, the little Dogwood was growing. Pop told me part of her morning routine was standing at the den window and watching the Dogwood. "I hope it blooms this year," she would say. And one day it did.

   Pop helped my Mom walk slowly toward the little tree that morning. The cancer was draining her energy, and her vision. She never knew the flowers were made of silk, carefully and lovingly applied by my father's hands earlier that morning. Prayer changes things. Prayer moves the heart of God. Prayer also moves the hearts of men. In that simple act, my father showed me an aspect of loving a wife as Christ loves the Church. Thank you Pop for showing me how to honor my wife, for showing me that Mother's Day isn't just one day in the year. 

   On September 22, 1990, my Mom left the land of the dying and entered the Land of the Living. Pop tells me he thinks about her every day.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her." Ephesian 5:25