Mothers

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. I think of my dear mother daily. I have missed her so much since she passed away in 2002. As my post before mentioned, she had Alzheimer's Disease and in her last days she was hardly conscious enough to open her beautiful brown eyes. She still managed to tell me, "I love you too baby," when I would kiss her on the cheek and tell her I loved her. That was for sure a God thing! She could hardly speak at that time.

My mother was truly an amazing woman. She was 41 years-old when I came into this world. I've always said that I was my parents mid-life crisis. I cannot even imagine having a child at this age. I can barely get out of bed some mornings, let alone keeping up with an infant!

When my mother was 18, she had a sports injury to her leg from playing basketball and they discovered she had a tumor that was growing in the muscle in the calf of her leg. They performed surgery to remove it. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of her problems. Over the next 30 years she had over 20 operations to remove the tumors that kept coming back. The tumors moved down into her foot and grew at alarming rates. She even had part of her right foot removed and a skin graft put in place. Although she was in a great deal of pain most of the time, she still sewed me new dresses to wear to church, made the most outrageous sour-dough bread EVER, cooked wonderful nourishing meals for her family and supported my Dad in his ministry. She was also a very talented artist who painted lovely oil paintings of the Texas landscapes and of the Native Americans that she loved so dearly.

My mother was my best friend. When I was 4 years-old she taught me how to read. She had to stay in bed a lot during that time because blood poisoning had settled into her leg. She would hold me by my ankle to keep me on the bed with her and also to keep me from tearing up the house. To keep me from being bored she taught me to read and I still have a passion for reading.

She also had some mad skills at throwing her crutches. I would test her patience and if I tried to run away from her she could lob that crutch like a javelin and trip me up long enough for her to reach me.

Most of all, my mother was one of the finest Christian women I have ever known. She never complained about her situation or asked why. She took what God gave her and made it into something positive. Her foot was even studied by doctors at Baylor Medical because hers was the only case they had ever seen or heard about. She felt that if it could help someone else in the future it was all worth it. She always said that God never gives us any more than we can handle and as long as she had Him on her side she could get through it. God did a miracle for her though, even though she was in the last stages of her Alzheimer's, He healed her foot completely during that last year. I know He knew she would not be able to care and bandage it herself as she had done everyday, so he took the sores and infections away. I'm still in awe of His amazing grace.

My mother taught me many things but the most important thing she taught me was that family is important to a healthy, spiritual life. Everyone needs to have that connection with people who love you unconditionally and she was that to me. I'm so thankful I had her in my life and I'm blessed to know that she is whole again and no longer in any kind of pain. She is at home with her Heavenly Father that she loved so much. She always said that, "God is so good! I have my family and my painting. I want for nothing." What a sweet spirit. I can only hope that I can be half the mother to my boys that she was to me.

Here's what God says about Christian mothers:
Titus 2:4-5 “Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”

Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?”

God bless you all today and know that God loves you! You are more precious to Him than you could ever know!

Your sister in Jesus Christ,
Tishira