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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 7, NUMBER 19, MAY13, 2007 MOM There will be a one-week interruption in our series of answers to the tract, “Common Sense Questions a ‘Church of Christ’ Preacher Cannot Clearly Answer. In June my mother will have been dead for 7 years. I find that hard to believe even as I write it. I miss her everyday. I am fifty-two years old and still with every event in my life – good, bad, or just different – one of the first things to go through my mind is, “I’ve got to call mom.” I can hear her now. “Mom, I’m going to be a grandpa. I’m not old enough to be a grandpa.” “How do you think I feel, Greg? My baby is going to be a grandpa.” And on and on we would go. One of my earliest memories, and I don’t even know how old I would have been at the time, occurred when I wandered down the street a little bit from our yard. I was young enough not to be allowed outside of the perimeter of our little plot of land in Deer Park, Ohio. I distinctly remember mom grabbing me with one hand, dragging me home, all the while spanking my bottom with a spatula with the other hand, although in those days we called it a pancake turner. I remember standing at the front door watching my brother and two sisters get on the bus for school, and then racing mom back to her bedroom and jumping into bed. I always wanted to get her side because her pillow smelled so good. After I fell back to sleep, mom would get up and go about her business. All the while I was growing up, mom was a stay-at-home mom, at least until I was in high school. She was the hardest-working woman I have ever known. In my earliest years mom would not wear slacks. I can see her every time I read of someone in the scriptures “girding” themselves. Mom always wore a dress of some sort, and when she was scrubbing the floors (always on her hands and knees) she would hitch that dress up in such a way to allow her to get down there and still be modest. She collected S & H Green Stamps and also Yellow Stamps from the grocery stores and a trip to the grocery store generally meant a piece of gum from one of the gum machines and perhaps, just perhaps, a ride on one of the bucking broncos that used to be outside almost every such store. I do believe every baseball glove I ever had as a child came from those stamps. The day I left my glove outside and it got ruined because it rained overnight resulted in a stiff lecture from both mom and dad. Yet somehow, with so very little money, by the time my next practice rolled around mom had gotten me a new glove. Even though mom denied it up to the day she died, I remember playing in the “Turkey Bowl” football game in grade school. I was just a 6th grader playing with the 7th and 8th graders. I was playing cornerback when the opposing team ran the old Green Bay Packers sweep. That meant that everybody and their brother pulled and led that runner around end. Everyone on our team got blocked and there I was, the last bastion of hope for our team, protecting that goal line, weighing all of maybe 80 pounds. I was all set to make the tackle until a road grader hit me and down I went with a torn up knee. (Kids, get out of the way if a road grader is about to hit you.) As I lay on the field having my uniform pants cut off of me I heard a voice. It was soft at first but gradually grew in volume. What the voice was saying was, “My baby, my baby!” Lo and behold, my mom made her way onto that field. She was right with me as they loaded me into the ambulance. I acted embarrassed at the time, and continued to bug my mom about that all through her life – but I loved hearing that voice and having her hold my hand through the pain. I also remember the times I caused my mom heartaches and the times when she would shake her head, give me a look that only she could give, or tell me that she was disappointed in me. I wish that I could take every single one of those times back and behave differently. The high school years were tough as I rebelled and tried to assert my independence. I did a lot of things that I deeply regret, said some things to my mom that I would give almost anything never to have said, and yet as big a jerk as I was, there was mom. My life did not go in the direction she had anticipated. As a matter of fact, the choice I made when I was twenty-one about what I believed and what I wanted to do with my life created some disappointment and hurt feelings simply because she did not understand. However, as the years went by and we talked and studied – mom and dad even accompanied me to a debate I participated in at Lincoln, Nebraska with a fellow who held the same views they did -- she let me know in her own special way that she was proud of me. She saw, or was aware of, most of the wonderful things that happened to me because of the choice of life that I had made. She didn’t really live to see the bad. As I write these words I miss her so much that my heart is aching and my eyes are misting over with tears. There is something very special about a mother and I am reminded of a statement that is made concerning Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Luke 2. Perhaps you remember the account of the time when Jesus was twelve years old and He accompanied His parents to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. When Mary and Joseph began the journey home, Jesus remained behind. They did not realize this because they thought he was with their relatives and acquaintances who were traveling with them. When they discovered that He was not there, they returned to Jerusalem and found Him three days later in the temple talking to the teachers of the Law. In verse 51 & 52 we find, “Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.” Now obviously Mary remembered the miraculous circumstances of Jesus’ conception and birth. She remembered the coming of the Magi and the statements of Simeon and Anna in the temple. And now she ponders and remembers this peculiar statement of Jesus and undoubtedly tries to sort out the meaning of it all in her heart. I am not comparing myself with Jesus, but my mom kept everything I did in her heart, and I believe all good mothers do so as well. There is just something about a mom, and I believe God designed it that way. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! Greg Litmer
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