Homesick for Mom

“We need to be homesick for heaven. Though we have never been there, we still have something God has built within us that gives us a certain homesickness, a desire to be there.” Greg Laurie

 
Every spring a I get a little homesick. Though Wisconsin is my home and has been for over forty years, I still miss Atlanta where I grew up. I find that I particularly miss the blooming of the dogwood trees in the spring. There are so many in Atlanta that they have a “Dogwood Festival” every year. My favorite has to be the pink dogwood.
  Mother’s Day also makes me homesick, yet not for my past home but for my future Home. It’s hard to believe that my Mom has been in Heaven for nearly 55 years. The last time I saw her, she and my two sisters were on their way to a wedding on a rainy Friday night of the Memorial Day weekend. The next time I saw her, it was just her body…really her arm from the open car door where rescue personnel had checked her pulse at the bottom of a steep embankment. From the top of the highway, I recognized the watch on her wrist and knew that it was my Mom.  
  Hebrews 12:1-2a says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.”
  That “cloud of witnesses” are believers, specifically ones from the Old Testament, who looked forward in faith. Every Christ-follower is surrounded by the saints of the past in a unique way. It’s not that the faithful who have gone before us are actual spectators of the race we run. Rather, it’s a figurative representation and means that we ought to act as if they were in sight and cheering us on to the same victory in the life of faith that they obtained. We’re to be inspired by the godly examples these saints set during their lives. These are those whose past lives of faith encourage others to live that way, too. That the cloud is referred to as “great” indicates that millions, hopefully billions, of believers have gone before us, each bearing witness to the life of faith we now live.
  Though I went through some deep waters and had times of running from God and even bitterness at Him, the Lord has used my Mom’s example to both encourage and inspire all of these years. My Mom came to Christ when I was about four years old and though I don’t remember much of her pre-conversion life, her conversion life is indelibly printed on my heart.  
  My Mom spent time with the Lord every morning. In can still see her sitting at the kitchen table, Bible open, lime green coffee cup on the table beside it. It was an example for me. It’s very rare for me to begin any day without time in the Word. It changes me and prepares me for the day.
  My Mom was consistently patient. It probably happened more yet I only remember my Mom becoming angry one time…and if anyone could make you angry, I could. I was a bit of a rascal as a kid (think Denis the Menace). Though my two older brothers were nearly adults and essentially out of the home, I had two older sisters and there are two years between us. Ina was nearly five years older, and Suellen is two years older than me. We fought and scrapped and fussed a lot as siblings often do.
  Though she didn’t have the support of my Dad, my Mom would seek to have devotions with the three of us. We weren’t overly cooperative, but she persevered. She tried and I still remember it.
  She wasn’t perfect, yet to my knowledge, she truly didn’t have any enemies. She had a friend who’d been struck with ALS that we’d go visit. Another was limited financially but my Mom would reach out to her. Though her own mother had died when she was in her twenties, she loved my Dad’s folks and tried to be a blessing and help his parents out.
  My Mom persevered even when she was consistently mistreated. My Dad was driven to succeed. His family when he was growing up had been one of the poorest in their county with his Dad a drunk and a moonshiner. My Dad was determined that was never going to happen to him, so he cut ethical corners. To cope with the pressure he became addicted to prescription drugs. Though he was a charmer outside our home, he would take out his stress and anger on my Mom. There’s no good way to say it…he was mean. It was common after my Mom had made dinner for our family for him to so pick at her during the meal that she’d leave the table in tears. There were a few times when he actually physically abused her.
  She wasn’t a doormat yet for his cruelty, she returned kindness. She didn’t gripe at church or with her Christian friends about what a horrible person he was or how bad their marriage was. She did have a close group of godly friends who she’d pray with and that she could ask for spiritual support. Looking back, I think it was only to keep her unsettled, but he’d often threaten to divorce her. For some reason, he was just cruel.
  The night she was killed in a car wreck, I remember her at the top of the stairs with my Dad downstairs watching TV. She lovingly said good-bye to him, but he retorted back with some angry reply. Her Christlike spirit in the face of hatefulness is a model that I seek to emulate yet so often fail.
  My Mom prayed for me. After she was gone, I learned that she continually prayed for me and my four siblings. I know that I am where I am today in answer to her prayers. Yet, like so many mothers, she never saw her prayers answered in this world, but she prayed in faith. 
  There’s a lot of pressure on moms today to be Super Moms. Many have had to exchange being homemakers for the workplace, which has increased fatigue and pressure. The truth is that there are no Super Moms. Yet, every Mom can be a saintly Mom. It means like Mary; you need to regularly sit at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42). You’ll never have the influence on your children without His influence on you. There’s pressure to help your children be successful in this world. Real success and what they’ll eternally thank you for is helping them be successful in the real world, God’s world.   
  Heaven is sweeter for me because it will be the first time since childhood that I’ll see my Mom again. It’s why I’m a little Homesick. So, Moms, this Mother’s Day, renew again your commitment to knowing Jesus and influencing your children for a life of worth that’s successful for eternity!

 

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