I am Thankful for My Mother’s Birthday

Today is the day we would have celebrated my mother’s eightieth birthday. We would have celebrated her birth today but she wasn’t born on December fifth. She had always thought that was her birthday, but she, like all of her siblings, was born at home without a doctor present. When she turned sixty-two she applied for social security as a dependent of my Dad. (She had never worked outside of the home.) When she went to get proof of birth she discovered her birth date was actually December 6.

Mom passed over into the presence of the Lord at the end of March, 1998. Her life was marked by uncommon love: love for God, love for the Word of God, love for my father, love for her children and grandchildren, love for her parents and siblings, love for her nieces and nephews and their children, love for her church family, and the list goes on. Her love was deep, longsuffering, and pure.

Her sixty-eight years were also marked by uncommon pain, physical pain. She had chronic kidney problems from the time of her early teens: stones, tumors, prolapsed valve, and atrophy. In the late sixties she was told she had just a few years to live. God promised her she would live to see her children grow up and she did. He didn’t promise her freedom from pain and she suffered daily. In her words, “it’s like a hot knife stuck through my kidney and someone is twisting it all the time.” In 1976 one of her kidneys was removed and she was told that she would soon have to live on dialysis. God promised her she would not have to live on dialysis and she didn’t. For twenty years a series of doctors told her she would be on dialysis within six months, but she never was at least not until the last three days of her life.

Everyone who knew my mother knew she was passionate about serving God. She loved to teach and preach the Bible. The Presence and the Word of God were woven into every conversation. Those who spent any time in her house knew she was a fervent prayer warrior. She talked to God and He often talked to her. When she died I became a catholic in the sense that I now occasionally talk to a saint in heaven with full assurance that she is praying for me and that she has the ear of Jesus. If God answered her prayers when she was with us, surely He is answering her prayers now that she is with Him.

Missing her greatly and remembering her fondly on her birthday.

Cleveland, Tennessee
December 5, 2010
JDJ