The Most Valuable Family Tradition

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, my thoughts have naturally turned to memories of my own mother. Clear back to my earliest years and beyond are memories of poems my mother wrote declaring, in the face of hardship, her trust in God and His promises. Promises were regularly claimed, prayers prayed and answers seen. My life was shaped by gifting me with the very framework for the ministry God has given me.

I can’t remember how it happened–perhaps Mom brushed her face with her glove while waiting for my little sister and me to catch up. Whatever the case she suddenly became aware that she had lost one of her contact lenses in the SNOW! This was before contacts were disposable. With no glasses for a backup, her single pair of contacts was all that she had.

Even if my parents had had the money to replace them, it would have meant a long trip into town to the ophthalmologist and then several weeks to wait and another trip to town to pick them up. She MUST find it but how? Finding the tiny lens would be harder than the proverbial needle in a haystack. Every hump, lump, and bump in the road was covered with fluffy white snow.

Mom tried to get us to stand still so we wouldn’t disturb the snow but standing still for preschoolers isn’t an easy task. Nearly in tears, my mother said, “let’s pray.” We knelt in the snow and folded our glove-covered hands the best we could. Mom led us in prayer telling God her plight and asking Him to please show us where the contact lens was. As we got up from kneeling she spotted the tiniest glint of light reflecting right where she had knelt. YES! Right in the middle of her knee print was the lost contact lens! Recently I have been honored to be a part of preparing for a family reunion.

Together with my mother’s cousins we shared notes and practiced our skills on how to make some of my great grandmother’s traditional recipes. Again my memories were stirred. This memory was of an elderly woman, my Great Grandmother, hunched over in a chair. Small children sat at her feet listening attentively while she told a story.

The story was of my own Grandmother when she was a little girl. My grandmother had lost her only pair of shoes. Great Grandma told how they had looked for them and how they prayed and the manner in which God had answered!

Yes, recipes of strudels and sauerkraut, and kuchen and gooey rolls are important not to be lost and without a doubt would make my dear great-grandmother proud; however, I have a feeling what would make her the proudest would be to see her faith in God and stories of answered prayer being passed clear down to the youngest generation.

This Mother’s day I’m not only thanking God for my Christian mother, but also for the generations of Christian mothers before her who passed on the most treasured of all family “traditions” unwavering faith in God.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom, I love you!