MOTHERS DAY
I guess I'll never forget the summer evening we stood around my mother's hospital bed, waiting for that next breath that never came. She had suffered a stroke five days earlier and without regaining consciousness, passed peacefully into eternity.
The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians immediately came to my mind - defiant words, encouraging words, words of hope and of faith - Where death is your sting, where grave is your victory? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
But while it was tremendously comforting to know that she was at peace and enjoying all God had prepared for her, it was like something unravelled in our family that night. She was the stuff that held us together and had been all my life. We missed her as we left that hospital and I miss her as I sit here thinking about her this Mothers Day.
Dulcie Kate Blackmore was a mother from another generation.
Till the day I graduated high school, there was never one single day I arrived home and she was not there.
She felt playing with her children was important, so she did that all day and focused on housework once we were all in bed.
She knew what really mattered in life. We didn't have much, but we enjoyed a heck of a lot of love, affirmation and encouragement.
My mother did not know the Lord when I decided to go to Bible College and prepare for ministry. She could not understand how I could manage at a full-time school with no time for working my way through it and was even more confused when I told her God would provide. Unable to see how my "living by faith" would work, she took an early morning cleaning job so that she could support me as I prepared for ministry.
Every day she got up while it was still dark, walked a mile to work and cleaned a huge bank, walking home again as the sun was rising. She never saw a dime of it - she used it all to pay for my classes.
So if God has used me in any way to help any of you who read these pages on occasions, be assured I would never even have got a start in ministry if it were not for a remarkable mother.
The words of Paul in 1 Corinthians immediately came to my mind - defiant words, encouraging words, words of hope and of faith - Where death is your sting, where grave is your victory? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
But while it was tremendously comforting to know that she was at peace and enjoying all God had prepared for her, it was like something unravelled in our family that night. She was the stuff that held us together and had been all my life. We missed her as we left that hospital and I miss her as I sit here thinking about her this Mothers Day.
Dulcie Kate Blackmore was a mother from another generation.
Till the day I graduated high school, there was never one single day I arrived home and she was not there.
She felt playing with her children was important, so she did that all day and focused on housework once we were all in bed.
She knew what really mattered in life. We didn't have much, but we enjoyed a heck of a lot of love, affirmation and encouragement.
My mother did not know the Lord when I decided to go to Bible College and prepare for ministry. She could not understand how I could manage at a full-time school with no time for working my way through it and was even more confused when I told her God would provide. Unable to see how my "living by faith" would work, she took an early morning cleaning job so that she could support me as I prepared for ministry.
Every day she got up while it was still dark, walked a mile to work and cleaned a huge bank, walking home again as the sun was rising. She never saw a dime of it - she used it all to pay for my classes.
So if God has used me in any way to help any of you who read these pages on occasions, be assured I would never even have got a start in ministry if it were not for a remarkable mother.
posted by Roger Blackmore | 2:30 PM
<< Home