Thoughts of My Mom

April showers bring May flowers.  And what do May flowers bring? Not pilgrims, as the old riddle goes…at least not to my mind. Even with the abundant super bloom this spring, my heart feels a yearning for something…someone I can’t see with my eyes or touch with my hands…at least not anymore.

As the month of May begins and Mother’s Day approaches, I long to be with my mom.  To once again hear her voice.  To sing with her as she plays the piano. To pray with her.  To hear what she’s learned about our Lord Jesus. To study things about our loving God together.  

When I was young, I thought my mom and I were quite different.  When I grew up,  I learned how similar we really were.  People mistook my voice for hers on the telephone, and said that, when I sang, I sounded just like her. Living miles apart we chose the same color of the same brand of lipstick.  We showed up at my youngest brother’s wedding wearing dresses made of the same fabric pattern, although they were very different in style.  She loved nature and could name all of the unusual-to-me shrubs and cacti around her Arizona home.  She loved watching the wildlife in her yard.  And she loved Jesus with her whole heart.

 As I experienced challenges in my life we spent more and more time together.  We took mother/daughter vacations.  I leaned on her.  She became my best friend.  She poured her faith in Jesus into me.  My most cherished memory of those days was the year we spent going through  How Can I Live, A Devotional Journey with Kay Arthur (©1982 by Kay Arthur, Published by Fleming H. Revell Company).  I especially loved the focus for May: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” and Psalm 23.  

Now, every May, I pull out this beloved book, wipe off the dust, and reflect again on the incredible lessons I learned through the author, and also from my mom as we studied and shared our hearts with each other.

Mom first went on this devotional journey in 1983. On May 5 of that year, she went to an outpatient clinic for a breast biopsy, which proved to be malignant.  In the book that morning, Kay Arthur told of a man who wrote from his prison cell,  “There was no real hope of life…the only reality was my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Divested of all, He was to become everything to me…He was to break my bars and enlarge my coasts in the narrow room…He would make me glad with His countenance.  He would let me hear His voice.”  That day’s challenge was to answer the question, “What is your Shepherd like that He could so provide for you that you would not even want – no matter what…?”

As my precious mother faced the dark days of a very different prison cell, she wrote in the margins of her devotional book honest, raw emotions as she came to really understand the deep everlasting love of her Shepherd.  A love that always seeks our highest good.  “His sheep are in His hands, and those hands are hands of love.  Nothing – not any situation or any person – can snatch us out of His hands (John 10:27)… Anything that comes into our lives…will be filtered through fingers of love. The sovereign God is a God of love. Whatever He does, whatever He permits is all in love”,  Kay Arthur wrote on May 8.  

And again on May 9, “He is there to complete that which He has begun, to make you into His image. This is His plan for you… So rest, little sheep, your Shepherd is there; He is in control.  Whatever comes to you has been filtered through fingers of love, and it will serve to accomplish His purpose.” (Emphasis mine)

Mom and I both learned the truth of those words.  We have both stood firm in our own fiery trials, knowing that our Good Shepherd was right here with us.  Her example taught me that, “He would so provide for me that I would not even want – no matter what”.  He did it for her so I knew He would do it for me!  In the depths of our hearts and minds we were convinced that He would never leave us and His will would be accomplished in our lives, because we are His sheep.

Mom lived another 16 years following that initial battle with cancer, finally being called home by our Good Shepherd’s voice in 1999.  I miss her terribly.  But each May, as I travel again on this devotional journey with her, reading in her hand the words she spoke to this daughter she dearly loved, I’m comforted that she is with our loving, gracious Good Shepherd.  

And I will see BOTH of them someday. I hope it’s soon.