Thoughts from the Homer: Mom -- Blessed in Life and Blessed in Death

A week ago, I got that phone call everyone knows will be coming.

My sister called to inform me my mother had passed away.

She was getting up there and would have been 80 this year. It was always easy for me to know how old my mother was – she explained it to me when I was younger.

“My mother is 22 years older than me,” Mom said. “I am 22 years older than you, Matthew.”

There you have it, now you know how old I am.

My mother lived a blessed life. In order to understand what I mean by blessed, I will explain.

My mother was a Biblical Christian. Her faith in Jesus Christ did not depend on any church denomination, ritual, religion or religious figure. She believed in her heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and she confessed the Biblical Jesus Christ as Lord – not just of her life – but as Lord of all.

Because of her love of the Bible, which is the Word of God, she not only knew “what” she believed but “why” she believed it. She did not fear death because she knew that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

Now some might object to my characterization of her life being blessed. After all, she lost her husband (my father) to cancer when she was just 32 years old – he was 37. She never remarried and for the first few years after his death, struggled to complete the raising of three children. After I left the house, she was alone – except for her new husband.

Yes, I said she never remarried – but remember, my mother was a Biblical Christian, and her faith was based on the Word of God. In the Bible, it is stated in Isaiah 54:4-5 that her Maker would be her husband because she was a widow.

Mom lived with her Maker for the rest of her life. She could be found, right before she went to bed, sitting in her chair next to her bed, reading her Bible and praying to her Lord. In the morning she would get a cup of coffee, retreat to her chair for a half hour or so and again, be in the Word of God and in prayer.

She didn’t live fancy, but she owned her own mobile home and lived in a park. Her needs were met, and while she had some hard times financially right after dad died, she wanted for nothing right up to her death.

She was found in her chair, Bible right beside her. She was having a conversation with her Lord that morning and that conversation turned into a face-to-face meeting.

Blessed? She was never on any medication and she had no illnesses. As she got older, she was getting weak to be sure, but she could still get in her car and go anywhere she wanted to. She was in her right mind and I had the pleasure of calling her a few days before she passed, as did my sister. She was cheerful and feeling fine. Blessed in life and blessed in death!

She was a regular attender of ever Sunday message I preached for the past two years – from the moment we decided at the height of COVID, to do Facebook Live. I would get a call from her right around time change to make sure she would not miss watching “live.”

My mother’s legacy to me is nothing less than eternal. Some parents and grandparents endeavor to leave behind some money, maybe some land or a house or other “things” in their life. Of course, I will have her memories in my mind until such mind is lost and I can look at her picture and try to retain the sound of her voice in my mind.

Yet my mother left me with something so much more. Every day of my life until I left her house, we would read at least one chapter out of the Bible together and pray together. As the Apostles told the lame man coming out of the temple, “Silver and gold, we don’t have, but what we do have we give to you.” Mom had faith that came from reading, hearing and studying the Word of God and that is what she gave me.

I have the highest degrees in theology and yet, the best education in the Word of God I received was facilitated by my mother, guided by her Heavenly Husband and my Heavenly Father and empowered by the Holy Spirit. She indeed stored up her “treasure” in Heaven and her trust fund to me began paying dividends long before she died.

What will you leave your children and grandchildren? Memories are great – but they will fade. Money and stuff will simply not last and is dependent on forces out of one’s control.

Jesus Christ and the Word of God? Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Words shall not pass away.”

My mother left me an eternal legacy. That’s the greatest gift a mother can give to her child!