A Birthday Message

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been almost two years. Although a lot has happened in that time, it still seems more recent when I last talked to my Mom. Today she would have been 94 years old, but she barely made it to 92 before God called her home.

Mom was the queen of consistency and perseverance, and I learned a lot by watching her live her life. After my Dad’s passing, she lived out the rest of her life (over 13 years) on her own in her own place, and she was able to pass into heaven in her own home after less than 3 weeks of illness. She loved her independence and was content with a simple and uncluttered life. Hers was a disciplined way of living that was both practical and frugal. Mom was a very serious person and a deep thinker.

Raised during the Great Depression and World War II in an ultra-conservative home, everything was black and white for Mom. She struggled sometimes to make sense of the increasingly gray world that evolved during her lifetime. I can only imagine how scary and confusing it was for her generation to be raising children during the turbulent 1960’s and 1970’s in our country.   

But Mom considered raising children to be her most important task in life, and devotion to her family was her top priority – a commitment that also extended to her 5 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. She was a true stay-at-home Mom by choice, and her love for home and family was instilled in me as well. Mom also was instrumental in the development of my love for both music and baking. I’m very grateful for my childhood and the values that were taught and modeled in my home.

Perhaps what stands out the most to me when I reminisce about my Mom is her tenacious, lifelong pursuit of God and her desire to grow in her relationship with him. Personal hardship sometimes made it difficult for her to trust God fully, but she absolutely never gave up trying. When she couldn’t make sense of God’s ways, she would lean on God’s words in her life verse, 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  In the last few years of her life, Mom would often testify to the sufficiency of God’s grace and his power through her weakness. I was blessed to see her relationship with God grow as she deliberately chose to trust him more fully.

Mom didn’t leave much behind in terms of possessions or money, because that wasn’t her focus in life. But her spiritual and family legacies remain with us and inspire us to walk as she walked and leave the same to the generations that come after us. Her birthday reminds me to cherish my loved ones and to keep pursuing God and trusting him until the end of my own life here on earth.

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