Mom’s day

This weekend is Mother’s Day and a perfect time to obey God’s fifth commandment when honoring your mother. This is the only commandment that comes with promise. “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land”. Apparently this command has special meaning to our Lord and thus should have special meaning to us.

One Sunday when I was a young man I was hard at work. I was a plant manager of a paint plant and because of budget constraints could not bring any of my workers in to work because I would have had to pay overtime. I decided I wanted to finish my warehouse relocation project anyway and went in on a Sunday and was driving a fork lift myself trying to get all of the paint pallets put up so we could start pulling orders with no delay on Monday. I disliked working on Sunday but felt this project was too important not to finish.

Late that afternoon I got a call. My wife called to tell me that she just got off the phone with my father and my mother had collapsed and was in a coma and was not expected to live. “How can this be?” I cried, “She has never been sick a day in her life”. I rushed home and drove what was back then an eight hour drive to Tuscaloosa Alabama where she was hospitalized, but never got to talk to my mother again. She died of a massive brain tumor and literally had no symptoms until about a week before she died when she had experienced some headaches. No one including her knew anything was wrong with her right up until the day she suddenly died.

The last time I saw her was several months before. My youngest son had just been born and I took him down to her house for “inspection”. I remember her holding him in her arms and rocking him on the porch marveling over his big dark eyes with a huge smile on her face. The last time I spoke to her, I called and talked briefly to her on the telephone a couple of weeks earlier. Had I only known then what was about to transpire

Thirty years have now elapsed since that tragic day, but I miss her today almost as much as the day she died. She was a delightful beautiful person inside and out and could literally “light up” the room whenever she entered one. She was very intelligent and quite witty. I would love to trade places with many of you and have the privilege of honoring my mother this coming Sunday and taking her to church and Sunday dinner. Take it from me, you should not take this privilege lightly, she will not be with you forever and when she is gone there will be a permanent hole in your heart. When I enter into heaven I intend to ask Jesus to allow me to see her as soon as possible and then I am going to give her the big hug I would dearly love to give her this weekend.

Rev. 21:4
And God will wipe away every
tear from their eyes; there shall
be no more death, nor sorrow, nor
crying.