Just before Christmas of last year, I made the decision to write to my mom at least once a month instead of phoning her every two weeks, as I have done for the past thirty years. My decision was based on the content of the phone calls' conversation - mostly about my sisters and the family home. The nature of the calls grew to be more negative, and I truly felt they were deteriorating our mother-son relationship.
The lives of my sisters (and to a certain extent, my brother) keep my mom worrying constantly, it seems, and the costs of maintaining a large house are always on her mind. The following is a recent letter to my mom. It is in response to her concerns about selling the family home amid all the drama in the lives of my sisters and niece.
Dear Mom:
I trust you and the girls are
doing well. The wife and I have been well.
Thanks for the letter written on March 11;
was a little short. Thanks, also, for your encouragement to pray to our Lord Jesus;
We do so every day. You will forgive us, though, if we don’t pray to
Mary – there is only one way to God and heaven and that way is Jesus. "For there
is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus." -1st Timothy 2:5.
Mom, your faith in God, I feel, is strong
and justified, however from a different point of view. My explanation of how I
feel about prayer and salvation is not about preaching to you. I make the
decision to explain because it reminds us (me and the wife) that God has convicted
us to our beliefs, and not the other way around.
The boys are doing well. Your second, great grandchild should be arriving around April 3 – of course we will phone
you on the day it happens. One of the boys and his wife are planning a trip to China this
September – wish I was going with them. The youngest boy continues to work at the hospital; his dog, Scooter, is growing (about 5 months
old, now).
Trust that you will sell the house soon, because
trust is greater than hope. A sad
example of where trust is not used is in the lives of the girls (my sisters and niece). Of course, I love them, but the Word tells us to distance ourselves
from those who may hinder our faith and joy. To me, the behavior they exhibit
is that of negativity, worldliness, and “learned helplessness.”
Having learned
to be helpless, the girls make themselves feel hopeless when they are truly not.
As I mentioned in an earlier letter, life is hopeless when there is no
hope – consider the people who are suffering from “real” hopelessness –
starvation, war, denial of freedom, etc.
Trust, I am convicted, implies “faith.”
And the mystery of faith demands trust. The Proverbs, in fact, remind us to
“trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not on your own understanding.
In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy paths” – Prov. 3:5-6.
When I say “I don’t trust so and so” (as I have said of one of the girls, in the past), please do not take it to heart.
Once again, Mom, I am not preaching to
you or others in the family – I am returning to you all and attempting to share the “good news.” Of course, the family (and maybe you) may
ask, “who is he to sound so holy and share words of faith and wisdom he has not
shared before with family?” And it is okay to question me. I can answer truthfully that I have been convicted by God and that man only spreads the seeds; God picks the crop
He has convicted.
I am definitely not a prophet, but Jesus,
I feel, was including people like you, me, my brother, and other Christians when He said, “A prophet is honored
anywhere else except in his own town or his home.” – Mark 6.
Take care, and peace be with you and the
family.
Love from me and your daughter-in-law,
Some Humor to Share
I found, firsthand, that beauty
is only skin deep when I looked into my wife’s abdomen during a caesarean
section for our third child.
Hillary Clinton was right when
she said it takes a village to raise one child; consider the actual amount of
all the taxes we pay (per child) for pre-schools, head starts, public schools,
and other social programs.
