Mother's Day, 1946

Mother’s Day 1946. My parents were married in Indianapolis, Indiana. My mother wore a blue suit that afterwards was her best church outfit. They intended to be missionaries to India, but my dad came down with tuberculosis that year and my mom with rheumatic fever, and it was eighteen years before they made it to India.

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My mother was an exuberant, enthusiastic person. She loved hiking in Brown County, building trails on the property my father bought in the late 1970s. For years she led a neighborhood <!--more-->Bible study where women discovered friendship with Jesus as well as friendship with each other. Her love for people reached out to the women at Wheeler Mission downtown and at a facility for the intellectually disabled. She saw them as individuals and formed deep friendships. Mom was extremely intelligent and interested in ideas. She would discuss Francis Schaeffer for hours around the kitchen table. Like him, she shed tears for those whose philosophies had led them away from a relationship with the Holy God. 

In her later years a series of tiny strokes made her lose the sharpness of her thinking, but not the sweetness of her spirit. She forgot people’s names and faces, but not Jesus’ love for them. 

On this Mother’s Day I’m grateful for such a wonderful role model. I hope to pass on just a bit of what she gave to me over all those priceless years.