I miss my mother. I guess she would be about 83 years old now. In May of every year I will always be acutely aware that she’s gone. I’m not alone in this sentiment. Many people have had loving, nurturing mothers who are thought of fondly in their memories. Celebration of mothers and motherhood are found in history as early as the Greeks and Romans when they held festivals honoring the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele. The thing is, I realize only too well my mother was not a goddess. Not because she wasn’t beautiful, because in my eyes she was. I know this because while she was nurturing and loving, she was also at times overbearing it seemed to me, especially when I was in high school.
It was that time in America when long hair and bell bottom jeans and rock and roll were in vogue. Being an average teen age boy, I had long hair, wore jeans everywhere, and listened to my share of “that” music (my mother used to call it). We had many arguments about hair, jeans and appropriate things to listen to on the radio. But mostly how I know my mother wasn’t a goddess is because she knew who God was, and she wasn’t it.
My mother carried me in her womb to church every Sunday before I was born. She took me after I was born, and I grew up along cradle row, in the three-bed nursery of the tiny church we went to at that time. She read me Bible stories and taught me about Jesus. She sang songs of praise while washing the dishes and cried out in pain to God when facing an uncertain future because of cancer. She praised God when cancer held no hold on her and lived on to sing again.
My mother made me clothes until I was a senior in high school; with her own hands she cut, sewed, hemmed and loved me. She tried to provide the latest in fashion for her only son while not buying the clothes at the Sears order store but by buying patterns and material she and I picked out together. She loved my three sisters the same way.
We knew that the love she showed us was born out of her desire to be the woman God had designed her to be. She believed Proverbs 31 was written as a guidebook for her. Listen to the words… “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also, and he praises her… Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.”
I miss my mother. But I know my mother is waiting patiently now, just as I am, until we are reunited when the Jesus she knew, and I know, returns again. I can hardly wait.
Jim Wilkins is the Pastor of Fellowship at the Ranch. We meet each Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. in the clubhouse. v