Life Matters - May 7, 2025

My mother (God bless her memory} was, and is still, through the example she left behind, a force to be reckoned with in this world. What she couldn’t accomplish on her feet, she endeavored to on her knees. When this rebel teenager got home late at night to find her on her knees in the living room, I didn’t dare disturb her because she might detect residual effects of that night’s party on me, but as I silently went up the stairs to bed, I knew in my heart who she was praying for. Me. It bothered me and I always resolved to do better. Until the next party broke my resolve. But I think back to those nighttime prayers ascending to the throne room of heaven from a woman of God and deep down I know God was listening. God heard and answered her prayers to the extent that her rebel son was able to turn, bless her, and his contact with her expressive dark eyes assured him she was pleased with her son. Mom was many things, but forgiveness and love are two that I especially treasure. 

Mom was a traditional housewife long before “trad wife” became a thing. I guess you could say she was trendy before her time. A trendsetter, if you will. That may seem like a “choke,” as the more traditional Deutscha might say, but think on it a bit; is it really? Have not all movements of God begun in small ways? Never underestimate the power of doing small, but right, things for others and for God. How would these young, rather rare, trad wives even know what a traditional wife does unless someone, however obscured in western culture, were still visible? And suffer me to state the obvious; the more there are the more visible they become.  

I suppose it remains to be seen what happens to the trad wives once being one is no longer ‘trendy’. Once the baby pukes, the three-year-old throws a fit, the school student is having a bad day, the teenager is giving you one, and their dad isn’t home. What then? Thankfully those don’t usually happen all at the same time. But they might. What then? Even if it’s only one at a time. What then? Add in the regular duties of housekeeping…being a traditional mom has its joys but wouldn’t always make an especially effective trad wife promotional theme. May the grace of God be yours today and always. I appreciate the fresh desire for a return to traditional family values. God’s blessings to all wives and moms this Mother’s Day and all year.  

God knew what He was doing when He gave children to us mothers and fathers. There is no one in this world we love more, unless the spouse who was the other half of the equation. There is no one in this world we would so readily go out-on-a-limb for, or more readily die for. No one we yearn for success more (whatever our personal definition of success) no one we hurt more for in their hurts, nor rejoice more for in their joys.

And yet. And yet, there is no one in this world that can try our patience more. To love them is to accept an exercise in patience. It takes patience to (yes patiently} guide them to the true measure of success. It takes patience to guide them into loving and forgiving those who hurt, while yet standing up for what is right. It takes patience to guide them to the Source of true joy. It takes patience to guide them. It takes patience to correct them. It takes patience to apologize when we fail them. It takes patience when we feel out-on-a-limb and it feels like they would as soon cut the limb off as not. It takes patience when our dreams of perfection fail. When our life is slipping away and we are still struggling for our definition of success. 

I doubt if any of us are ever, or will ever be, until we are safe in heaven, able to feel think and say that our dreams of success have been fulfilled, that we are happy with the outcome. Mother did well but she wasn’t perfect. Neither am I. All of us need Jesus. In Him is ultimate success. In Him is ultimate joy. In Him is ultimate forgiveness, ultimate Love, ultimate healing of hurts, ultimate healing of hearts, lives and homes, the ultimate Provider of patience as we look forward to ‘’an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’’ (II Corinthians 5:1) 

Sadie, my wife of 43 years, following in the tradition of our ‘trendsetting’ mothers has also been a traditional housewife and mom all these years—a trendsetter—if you will. She has mothered our children well and from our little corner of the world I am confident that God hears her prayers. I treasure her forgiveness and love. And want to give her mine afresh while I still can. We never know how much time we have left.  

We often don’t realize fully how much we loved until the loved one is gone. Anne Frank— the young Jewish girl, whose diary was rescued from the Frank family’s ‘Secret Annex’ hiding place following the Nazi raid that took them all away, Anne never to return—is quoted to have written it this way, ‘’Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.’’ 

Anne Frank is gone but she left all who read her diary an encouragement to give ‘’flowers’’ while we can. This young teenage girl’s influence continues long after the Nazi ‘purge’ that took her life has ended. Let us give ‘’flowers’’ to the living.   

Life Matters!