For Mother's Day

What my mother means to me:

Graciousness.

Mercifulness.

Lovely.

Tenderness.

Boldness.

Gentleness.

Kindness.

My mom is an amazing woman. While working a professional job saving lives, she raised two kids. She put up with the antics of my dad (and mine, ‘cause raising a boy is straight sanctification I assume) and did so in a way that bespeaks godly, biblical submission to his authority. (That is not to say my upbringing was in any way chauvinistic. It is to say my dad was/is the spiritual leader.)

Mother’s day, the day to celebrate what mom has done for her kids.

For protecting her kids like a bear.

For being the only one to console a broken heart.

For being the nurse to fix scrapped knees.

For saving tiny shoes and old pictures.

For the correction little sinners need.

For the tears at our graduations and awards.

For the life of love given to another.

 Yet, some have lost their mom. Whether from the slow wear of time, cancer, or suddenness of a car wreck she won’t be around this Sunday. Indeed, eventually, most of us will face the time where we bid our final goodbye and try to remember her as she was.

So Mother’s Day might as well be another way to say unconditional-love-care-support-gentleness-kindness-and-protection Day -- for all. The druggy on the street corner, the friends who have lost her, the kids who know her, and everyone else, ‘cause mom was always there for me and what better way to celebrate who my mom is than to imitate her?

Professional Worrying

“Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:5-8

We are society of professionals when it comes to the game of worrying. In fact it’s possible to worry us right into the hospital (which many people do). Whether it is our job, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, TV show or gas prices (or all of the above) we can, and do, worry about it.

There are a couple meanings, which I think would be beneficial to know about the word ‘anxious.’ It’s first and most simplistic definition is: “greatly worried,” however there is a second meaning which I believe is just as important and necessary of knowing as the first: “earnestly desirous; eager.”

We earnestly desire to see something besides God’s glory as true.

We are eager to look at small plights and see them as more dangerous than our sin.

This, in my opinion, describes our sin life to a T.

Rather than being satisfied by the Controller of the Universe (The Creator and Destroyer of everything) we’d like to live in the fantasy of faux control. Eagerly thinking us the captain of our own demise, the leader of our own life, the champion of whatever cause we deem worthy – but this is a far cry from belief and faith.

“… In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

In Jesus we are hidden and safe, we are guarded from a pitiful and unreasonable worry (it’d be safe to call worry ‘stupid’). It is the reason our salvation is described as a helmet and our righteousness as a breastplate in Ephesians 6, Jesus is our salvation and as such is capable of protecting our minds, he is our righteousness and will guard our hearts.

Thus, we, you and I both, need and should and must eagerly desire to see our Savior as capable of seeing us through these hard times, these small worries.