And She Takes Just Like A Woman But She Breaks Just like A Little Girl (Happy Mother's Day, Mom).
And She Takes Just Like A Woman - But She Breaks Just Like A Little Girl (Happy Mother's Day, Mom)..
Today at my church, at Calvary Cathedral of Praise, the men took over virtually all of the sanctuary's duties in honor of all the mothers on Mother's Day; and, so, with aptly reflection, I write about my own beloved mother who have been a 'mother and father to her four children.' I did not grow up with her, but I was raised by her mother and later went on to California to live with my dad in my mid-teens. I had secured good grades to get into the so called good colleges, and, though, I applied to many on the West Coast, I only got into those colleges on the East Coast, including NYU. My coming to New York is how I grew a rapport with my mother. I convey this again to say that even though now I do not know my mother as much as my other siblings who she raised, I know that she is quite a woman and above all, a woman of Christ Jesus.
To illustrate how much 'juice' (influence) my mom has with Jesus, when I was in California, after my service in the Army, I had a dream where I was traveling with my mother via an airplane and the plane crashed. I saw myself and my mother in the sea, with the debris spread out, and then I heard my mother say, "There is Jesus!" The truth is that as soon as my mother said that she saw Jesus, she soon disappeared leaving me by my lonesome... that dream was a testament that I needed Christ Jesus. When her mother died and my grandmother who raised me, my passport had expired and I told one of the civil servants, whose job it was to facilitate my getting a new passport - that civil servant gave me a rather difficult time when I told her my dilemma. I remember calling my mother who told me that she was going to the bathroom to pray and that I should go back to that civil servant after she had prayed. I waited and then went back to the window and lo and behold... the Lord moved that lady, who I initially spoke to, and I received my passport that enabled me to go home to Saint Kitts and bury my grandmother.
I can go on and on, but I thank my mother the most for her prayers that led me to Christ Jesus... for Christ' Salvation is the greatest gift any human being can secure. When I came to know my mother around 1990, I noticed that she had marked in her well read Bible a passage from Isaiah 54, which said, ...Great shall be the peace of her children...." My mother went on to say to me that her marking of that Scripture was one of the first time that she had heard the literal speaking voice of the Living God/Christ. Now, when I was living in poverty, I used to envy those who had means and hoping that I was born in those particular families - but let us suppose that, even though they had means, that they did not know Christ Jesus Spiritually? One must be awfully careful what they wish for because no matter one's lot in life - be it weal or woe - if one does not know Christ Jesus, the Hellish, dire consequences are such that I do not wish them on my worst enemies. That promise made by the Christ to my mother I thank her copiously knowing that the 'peace' spoken about in Isaiah is not of this world, but the next, which lasts after forever.
My beloved mother has taken in six or so people in her home who were having a difficult time economically - some stayed for years, not paying any rent... and only one had the Jesus' courtesy to look back to say, 'thank you.' There are times when I want to launch a verbal jihad on those my mother have helped and who are now living the good life and do not have the courtesy to say, 'how are you doing.' When I remind my mother of my intentions to lambast those ungrateful ingrates, some of whom are frequenting the Social Media sites 'bigging' up strangers, ironically, that they have just relatively met, she would ask me the rhetorical question: If that what Jesus would do - touche, Mom!
I do not want to leave here with you thinking that my mother is perfect; so let me scandalize her a little - by the way, I gave her a heads up - that the scandalizing was coming. I teased my mother about the time when I visited her as a boy in Saint Croix when she whipped me, out of West Indian superstition, for opening an umbrella in her home or her penchant for hanging up on her children when we disagree with her on a given subject matter. It was as recently as four years ago, I told my mother to stop hanging up on me otherwise I too would act in kind - she fell for my bluff and has not done so since. In the caption of this blog, I quoted some lyrics from one of my Mom's favorite artists, Bob Dylan because she does indeed takes just like a woman and she does indeed breaks just like a little girl... and, on this Mother's Day, all of her four children ask for forgiveness for the times we have caused the 'taking' and the 'breaking' and wishing her a happy Mother's Day... with our respective hopes in Christ Jesus that she has many more to come.
