Life Without Mother

“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

“Impress them on your children.” This was the life-mission of my mother and father in my youth. Even today, though in my youth the role often fell to my mom out of proximity, my dad carries this mission in his heart towards us. There have been plenty of life conversations over the past few years when he has offered scripture as the solution to the heart-wrenching (to me anyway) problems I’ve faced in this process of growing into adulthood.

But today, I do want to revisit the oft-forgotten, always-remembered past. As a child, what did this look like? It looked like a mother and father who prioritized Sunday and Wednesday — and any other night of the week — church where they knew we would be under the teaching of our elders and trusted teachers. As soon as we were old enough to sit up for long periods (I’m not even going to qualify that with “sit still”), we joined them in “big church” (aka the congregational fellowship of worship and pastoral teaching for those not familiar with at least southern church vernacular). My mother led us in weekly scripture memory as part of our homeschooling curriculum (for which my father was often an avid test-listener–“Go tell Daddy what you learned today”). I remember in my childhood a couple of practices — practices that I, in later years, erroneously thought we’d grown out of, from which I see now the mistake of allowing busyness to distract us.

One was the insistence by our mother to “ask forgiveness” for the “specific wrong” for which the sibling must offer specific forgiveness in order for us to be reconciled to one another and allowed to “go play”. (In recent years, I’ve tried to be intentional in applying this to my recent apologies. Not being defensive or justifying my sin toward someone, but simply recognizing and asking their forgiveness for the particular wrong.)

The other practice was evening family prayer around the living room coffee table. There were different prompts at different times, but I do remember one of them being “what is one thing you’re thanking God for today?” This of course has influenced my understanding of prayer even from a child. We never were taught model prayers (except The LORD’s Prayer) — and I’m not saying that model prayers are wrong — but told to just talk to God specifically. I see now how even that shaped my understanding of God: that He is not some distant, unknowable deity to appease with proper prayers — that He is a holy and personal God, wanting to hear honest prayers in response to His personal presence in my daily life.

Are you seeing a pattern here? It’s one of modeling. Teaching through modeling. There were, I’m sure, plenty of questions from us and answers from them along the way. But — and parents, this may be an encouragement to you — I honestly don’t remember answers. I remember the examples set.

As I mentioned, there were a couple of structured practices when I was younger we stopped doing regularly after a move or two and we kids grew older. However, many of the essentials remained the same: church every week. Daily prayer. Discussions of life influenced by the principles (and often specific verses) of scripture. Talking about the Sunday sermon and lessons on the way to and throughout Sunday lunch.

When the LORD kept me from sports in high school (different story for a different day), my mother faithfully drove me to Bible study (until I finally had a license and car myself). That led to an even deeper hunger for His Word. (Of course, I discussed this a bit in my last letter.) From that hunger, came some of my fondest memories from that last year with my mother. Every week, coming home from school or work in the afternoons and telling my mom all about what I’d been studying and the lessons for which I was preparing — with her response of her own study of His word. And I worked through so many life-principles that she so patiently and graciously encouraged, especially when I felt a particular conviction from the LORD over habits or ideologies.

This passage in Deuteronomy 6 expresses the instruction Proverbs 22:6 reiterates: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” My own mother quoted that in a letter she wrote to me my senior year as hers and my father’s mission statement toward my life. And she (literally) and he can rest assured that the LORD has done so through them. They have trained us in the love of the LORD and His word. Whether or not we depart when we are old is now between us and the LORD. But, they have faithfully done their part.

And, simply reflecting over this passage from Deuteronomy, I’m impressed once more by the instruction of the LORD in their example. How simple it was from a child’s eye. Sunday morning, we go to church. Sit down to eat, we thank the LORD. Going to sleep, we thank the LORD and ask His blessing over our concerns. Any opportunity to have fellowship with a believer, we fellowship. In regard to the Word of the LORD, we are to hunger for and love it, internalize its words and meaning, seek greater understanding for the sake of knowing God better. When we go about our business, treat others with kindness, gentleness, patience… lots of fruit.

Eight years from being under the same roof, and the many arguments of the world and trials of suffering have only brought a firmness of step in my walk with the LORD, because my parents impressed upon me, as Jesus repeats from Deuteronomy 6: the greatest commandment — “to love the LORD your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind” (Matthew 22).