Garland of Grace May 11, 2008

     Proverbs 1:8-9

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

     I was looking for a verse this morning to use as my inspiration for writing something that could portray the way that i feel about my mother. Then i came across Proverbs 1: 8-9 and i knew that was what i had been looking for.

     As an adult i have come to know the true value of a mother, my mother. In all the wealth of knowledge i have learned in life, the jewels mother has taught me as an adult will be the kind that last through ages even if i don’t have any kids to pass them on to. If i only could have known what my future held as a bratty teenager i probably would have behaved a lot better. Wouldn’t we all?! Saved my precious mother a lot of grief.

     My mother is a treasure to me. She is that garland to grace my head and that chain to adorn my neck. Her beauty stretches far beyond the physical and deep into my very soul. I love her with every breath i take and praise God for His healing her so that i could know her value in my adult life. I am proud for people to know she’s mine! Am i’m stingy and don’t want to share her anyway!!

     I laugh when i think about how God must have been humored while He was up in heaven making mom then deciding to give her me and vice versa. She and I have a very warped sense of humor. Mom, Queen of the Niave. Heather, the opinionated Mouth of the South. The two of us get humored over something so stupid and laugh until we practically can’t breathe. This happening on a far to regular basis.

     I thought it would be fun to share a memory- one of my favorite memories- of my mother with you all. I better fill you in a bit so it’ll make more sense. At the time when this happened my mother was going through her radiation for breast cancer. Mom was the first in our family to ever have cancer like this. She had always been fairly healthy and before the cancer we ate & lived like “normal” people. Then one day we came home to find our refrigerator had been completely emptied of all normal food and replaced with lots of weird stuff- almond butter, flax seed oil, etc. That was the beginning of a huge life change for us all. Mom went on this quest to remove whatever could have played part in giving her or any of us cancer. Right down to cleaning supplies and so on. We still were not accustomed to these new weird rituals and everyday brought on something else new and strange. This was Heidi (my little sister) and I’s experience one afternoon coming home from high school….

     Heather & Heidi come rip-roaring into the driveway in Heather’s cool car with music blaring, window’s down. They opened the housedoor in the garage and this is what they saw: Mom with her face completely submerged in a clear purple tinted Pyrex bowl. Eyes squined shut. Ear’s not under the water and totally hearing us.

Heidi 15yrs: “What is our mother doing?!!!!!!!!”

Heather 18 yrs: Shaking her head in disbelief.  ”I have NO CLUE! Only our mother would be trying to commit suicide in a Pyrex bowl on the kitchen counter.”

At this moment it becomes apparent that mom is hearing every word and she starts blowing bubbles in the bowl from laughing. She lifts her head up and is cracking up laughing but will not look us staight in the face.

Heather 18 yrs: “Is this something else we’ll all be trying out now?”

Mother attempted to explain about how this was some healthful face wash for removing radiation or something. As for Heidi and I we were still laughing because we thought we must be the only kids on the planet with a goofball for a mother. I still can’t ever look at that Pyrex bowl the same again.

Mom,

Thanks for all the laughs. The talks. The cry’s. Thanks for just being you. Always asking me what color shirt to wear. Making me tell you if your butt is too big in “that” outfit. Letting me steal back the homeless shoes. <NO I DIDN”T REALLY STEAL FROM THE HOMELESS> For sharing the same stupid humor that i do. Thanks for inviting me to your bible study. Thanks for helping me learn how to really hear God talking to me. Thanks for watching me fail in life and helping get back up. Thanks for spanking me. Thanks for hugging me. Thanks for holding me. Thanks for praying, trusting, and waiting for the Lord to bring me back to my “home” and not giving up even though i know you must have wanted to 100,000 times while i was in the “lost years.” Thanks for being that mom who didn’t always do the right thing but tried. Thanks for the meatloaf even though i hated it. Thanks for the sacrifices i do and don’t know about. Thanks for letting me have a key to the house to drive you crazy 24-7. Thanks for spending time with me, calling me, and sharing far to many laughs with me. Thanks for being my mom and not somebody else’s. Thanks for being a Godly mom i can look up to and follow after. Thanks for just being you! Happy Mother’s Day!!

Love you mom,  Heff