Tuesday, March 25, 2014

A Letter to Mom

     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. Of course I pray the girls shed the darkness of learned helplessness and the feelings of hopelessness and see the light of trust and its constant companion, the “truth.”

     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.  The trust I have in others is of the Holy Spirit, the being that links all Christians together. When one (in the Spirit) is motivated to say, “I do not trust so and so,” the Holy Spirit is telling him or her that it (the Holy Spirit) does not reside in so and so. Behavior and resistance to the truth of so and so should inspire one to share the “good news.”  However, for many reasons, only understandable by God, one may distance himself or herself, at first, but, trustfully, returns later to share the good news.     
                                                                                            
      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.

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