A Mother's Love

I wrote last time of my father, now I would like to write of my mother.  My father taught me how to read Scripture, he taught me the importance of understanding what has been given to us, and he taught me how to be a man of faith.  My mother taught me how to suffer.  My mother showed me that no matter what, God is still God, and his ways are good, even when I cannot understand them.  My mother shows me still what patience looks like, and what it means to love even when you cannot act.

My mother is a quadriplegic.  She has been paralyzed since I was four years old.  She is what I have been taught is considered and "incomplete quad."  That means that she is able to move her upper arms, basically she has control of her biceps.  But, that's where he muscular control ends, a line across her body basically at breast level.

What that means is that my mother is incapable of any deep coughing to dislodge material from her lungs or deeper in her throat.  She is limited in what she can hold because she cannot grasp with her hands.  She cannot hold her self up as well because she does not have control over her abdominal and back muscles that most people have.  But, she is, with special equipment, able to drive, able to maneuver her wheel chair around, and able to feed herself and do other similar functions.  What limitations my mother has do not prevent her from enjoying life, they just mean she has to do things a little differently from others.

I bring all this up just so you can understand why my mother has had such an impact on me.  You see, despite all that she has gone through, I have never seen my mother depressed.  I have never seen her angry with the lot life has given her.  My mother has embraced all that God has given her, and has counted his plans as better than her own.  God has used my mother to impact me and others whom she has come in contact with so that we should recognize that it is possible to glorify God in the hard times as well as the good.

My mother loves to tell stories.  Maybe that's where I get my love of stories from.  She has told my brothers and I multiple times of what she went through in the hospital.  She tells of how after the surgery where the doctors determined how bad the damage that was done to her spine by the car wreck was, the doctors were amazed by what movement she had.  She has told us of how she prayed after the wreck, placing her life in the hands of God and acknowledging his sovereignty over all things.  I do not recount her stories here because my writing could not rightly capture the manner of them.

I mention my mother's stories because they were always focused not on what was going on in her life, but with how she was trusting God to handle and to care for her needs.  In all of my mother's stories she is not the hero.  God is the hero, and that is his rightful place.  My mother's stories are the epitome of what a Christian's testimony ought to be: a story from or about our lives that reveals the goodness and beauty of God to those who listen.  My mother tells stories of faith, because the God of the Scriptures is not dead, but is living and active within her, and her faith in the expression of how God has impacted her life.

I do not remember much of my mother from before she was paralyzed.  I guess as a little child you just take things like seeing your mother walk for granted, so those memories do not stick in your mind.  Even from the time around the accident I do not have many memories.  I don't remember going to the hospital to visit her.  I don't remember first seeing her in a wheel chair or learning about the idea that my mother would never walk again.  I just grew up knowing those things.

I also grew up knowing that my mother trusted that God has a plan, and that he is fulfilling that plan in her and in all things.  This was the faith I was brought up under.  My mother still puts up with pain, she still has many limitations and is beginning to experience additional complications from being paralyzed for many years.  But, she also remains cheerful, knowing that her God is good, and will do great things on her behalf.  I pray that should I ever go through an event half so traumatic as hers that I would be blessed with that faith, because I have come to realize that it is a gift from God.  The Lord may take something away from us, a job, a career, our legs, even our families.  But, if we put our faith in him, he is all we need, and he will provide for us, so that he might receive the glory.

I closed last time with asking men to be fathers, so this time I ask women to be mothers like my own.  Share your faith with your children (cf. Acts 16:1 and 2 Timothy 3:15).  Take those children who do not have godly mothers under your wings and bring them into your lives that they may see the grace of God through you.  Suffer with grace, as all Christians should, that those who look to you might see that your hope is not in this world, but in the new heavens and new earth, when God will right every wrong, and wipe every tear from your eyes (Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 1:5, Philippians 1:29, 2 Thessalonians 1:5).  Live your faith, dear women, impress all with your godliness, and tell the wonderful story of the grace of God in your lives (1 Timothy 2:9-10).

Of Good Fathers

I have learned more about the Christian faith from my father than probably anyone else.  My father taught me how to read the Scriptures, taught me the importance of the original languages, and taught me what it means to be a man of faith.  While I know that God can use whatever means he wants to in order to teach a man, in my case, much of what I learned came from my father, at least in seed form.  Even today, when I have questions or I want to double check my interpretation of a passage I'll call my father and talk with him, because I still want to learn from his wisdom, and I know that he has more experience and has studied Scripture longer than I have been alive.  The first command with a promise is to honor your mother and your father that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving to you, and my God has made it easy for me to be able to honor my father.

My father is the one who taught me how to see the themes of Scripture and how to read the bible with a focus on the development of the thematic elements within the text.  He taught me to how to realize that God is consistent, and is consistently revealing himself in a progressive manner from Genesis to Revelation.  As I developed in reading Scripture and began to see the importance of Christ in both the Old and New Testaments, the inspiration my father gave me helped me to go from simply reading words on a page, to really understanding the depth and value of Scripture.  There was a time that I thought learning the bible would be as simple as memorizing words and concepts, but then I began to see the intricacies of God's word, that each part plays into the other in a complex web and pattern, and I realized that I would never glean all that is in Scripture.  All of this because my father taught me that what I see in Genesis carries through to what I learn from Revelation.

I would be lying if I said my father taught me Greek or Hebrew.  The fact is my father rarely mentioned the Greek alphabet and may have used a handful of Hebrew words in my life.  But, my father taught me the value of knowing Greek and Hebrew from the way he turned to those languages when I had a question.

When I wanted to know whether Isaiah really meant for us to understand Immanuel as "God with us" my father pulled out a Hebrew concordance (I still love that book) and showed me the word "el" in the Hebrew, told me it was the word Isaiah used there, and then showed me where that concordance listed every single instance of that word in Isaiah.  I then went through the whole book of Isaiah, read every verse and section that mentioned God, and realized that Isaiah only ever uses the word "el" to denote divinity.  While my father did not teach me Hebrew, he did teach me the value of knowing the language.  That's why I spent five semesters in Hebrew and Greek study in seminary, because of my father's influence on me in seeing the value of knowing the languages of Scripture.

More than knowing languages, and more than simply knowing how to read Scripture, my father taught me what it means to have faith in Scripture.  I cannot think of a time when my father ever expressed a doubt in the awesome care and love of God to me and my brothers.  Even through times of difficulty, my father has always been steady in his care of his family and his belief in Christ.  I'm sure my father has had struggles to which I was not a party, just as I have had struggles which no one will ever know about but God himself, but his words and his manner have always been strong despite those difficulties.

I have written this not just to honor my father, though I have sought to do so.  I have written this to encourage young men who have not had strong father figures, that they might know what an impact they could have on their sons and daughters if they will be the men they wish their fathers could have been.  I have written this to remind each of us of the importance of fathers and father figures, and to remind those in the church that there is a need of fathers in this world.  In America today far too many children do not have fathers, and if the men in the church are not willing to be their fathers, Satan certainly has enough of his own lined up who are ready to do the job.

I could cite statistics and new reports about how children who grow up without fathers do worse in school, are more prone to crime, and more likely to get involved in gangs and other violent activities.  I could go on and on about how single mothers are forced to leave their children unattended for long periods of time in order to work and bring home food, thus leading to even more strife in the home.  I could discuss the poverty that many children without fathers live in.  But, the reality is God made us to come from a father and a mother, and he intended for that relationship that led to our creation to also continue on in our upbringing.  It is sufficient that this is the plan of God, the horror stories are simply proof of the goodness of God's plan.

Fathers are essential to a healthy home.  God has declared himself to be a loving father.  How will we learn about God when we do not understand the idea of what it means to be a loving father?  Dear Christian men, let us honor our father in heaven, and be fathers to the fatherless in whatever way we can.  You men who have sons and daughters, care for them as best you can, and if already you have a child with a woman who is not your wife, then plead with God that you might still be a father to that child, because he will need you.  I write this as a man who had a good father, and as a man who has seen the heartbreak of many friends who did not.