My Mom

Hello and welcome to Scattered Moments Reflections on Faith, Adversity, and the Quices White appears. And this is the first episode of a three-part series on Mothers. Mother's Day is a time of celebration, but for many people it is also complicated. For some, it is joyful and loud, filled with phone calls, flowers, family lunches, handwritten notes, and for others, it arrives quietly. Some long to be mothers, but never had the opportunity. Some carry the ache of broken relationships. Some think of their mothers who are no longer here. Some remember kindness. Others remember wounds. And yet, when we think about motherhood, I also think about something larger than biology alone. I think about the women God has used to shape the world through nurture, wisdom, sacrifice, protection, courage, and grace. Women who fed us, women who corrected us, women who prayed for us, and women who taught us right from wrong, women who carried burdens no one else could see. Some were mothers by birth, others became mothers through love. And this year, as Mother's Day approaches, I found myself thinking about my own mom. So many people have a tendency to create memories as hyperbole, and that is certainly the case with me. Because if the world had ever ended, if the apocalypse had come, if the Great Tribulation had broken loose, if there had been some kind of nuclear meltdown, the world would have come to our doorstep. My mom would have been ready. There would have been stacks of canned hominy, frozen vegetables, and enough toilet paper for everyone. Not the two ply, of course. Much too expensive. Growing up, I thought mom was the strictest, most penny-pinching woman on the planet. Now that I'm an adult, that theory has been fully confirmed. I used to think that was a flaw. I was wrong. I remember our weekly trips to the bread surplus store, buying expired cinnamon bread at half price. If it hadn't been for the commercials, I'm not sure if I would have known that McDonald's served French fries until I was, well, past the age of accountability. I can still hear her say on my birthday, I'm so glad you were born. But after all those labor pains, I should be the one getting the presents. But birthdays were celebrated. Gifts were given. But somewhere in the middle of that little joke, there was a truth being planted. You don't get rewarded for just showing up in this world. You find your work, you learn your song, and you play it well. Mom had two great gifts, saving and discipline. She didn't have to lay a hand on me. That look, that laser-focused glare, could singe your eyebrows from 600 yards away. I used to think I had the earliest bedtime in North America. After 8 p.m., there were only two acceptable places to be, church or bed. If we stayed inside too long, she had a list ready. Brooms, scouring pads, cleaning supplies. So my brother and I did what any reasonable boy would do. We rode our bikes for hours, like we were training for the Tour de France, just to avoid cleaning the ground. But one of the greatest things that mom ever did for me was she forced me to fail. She didn't just want me to feel the thrill of victory. She knew I needed to understand the agony of defeat. I still remember the day she took the training wheels off my bike without telling me. If she saw fear in me, she leaned into it. If she saw weakness, she moved me toward it. She knew I had no sense of direction whatsoever. So she'd send me on errands that practically guaranteed I'd get lost. And with absolutely no hand-eye coordination, she signed me up for piano lessons. I didn't enjoy them. Not any more than I enjoyed cleaning grout, and both were regular parts of my life. I can't play much today. But it gave me something else. It gave me the courage to run toward things I was actually called to do. She wasn't trying to make life easy for me. She was making me ready. Mom isn't with us on this Mother's Day, but she left something behind. I still feel it. I still tithe. I still watch my words. I still try to do more than what's expected. I eat my vegetables, and yes, I still put the seat down. She also raised three of the finest people I know, my brother Mark and my sisters Melody and Melinda. And I suppose you could say I was a little sheltered growing up, but somewhere between the canned goods, the early bedtimes, and the hard lessons, grace was still being stored up for me. That's today's Scattered Moment. I hope you will join me for the next episode to discover motherhood on another level. Until then, take care. Notice the scattered moments, and share the grace.