In a tiny corner of the huge New York airport, with tears flowing freely, she said, "Cora, you know I'd do anything for you but if I did it for you it wouldn't really mean anything would it?" I knew Mom was right and I cried all the harder. As with every visit, I knew this might be our last her health was so frail and 3,000 miles separated us. I had been begging her to receive Christ and was searching for some final convincing argument. "Mom, if God Himself shows you Jesus is the Messiah, will you receive Him?", I asked while the last call to board sounded. "Yes", she replied as we hugged, our cheeks wet with each others tears. After I boarded the plane the sadness eased. "Now I know exactly how to pray for Mom", I silently mused. "For she and I both agreed before God that if He would reveal Himself she would believe. Surely this prayer can't miss." I had no idea I would pray that prayer many, many years with no apparent answer; that she would finally lay dying and unable to communicate for 3 months and I would not be able to go to her or talk to her or even attend her funeral; that only after the darkest grief I'd ever known, would I find out through a special sign from God that He had indeed revealed Himself to her when she could no longer commune with those of this world. Yes, my Mom has been with God since August 26, 1989. She is every bit as alive as her Lord Jesus whom she now knows far better than I do. I want to honor her this Mother's Day. "Happy Mother's Day Mom!" That airport scenario was much more impressive than you can imagine at first glance. Her "yes" came from a Jewish heart taught to hate the name of Jesus, taught to fear Gentiles. It came from a heart broken by the Holocaust where the majority of her Polish family perished, then broken anew by a daughter who embraced all she hated. It came from a woman who said the mourners prayer in the synagogue for a daughter she loved and was spurned and hurt in return by that fledgling Christian who just couldn't handle it. It came from a woman who, in time, decided to love, forgive and listen anyway who in some ways had a bigger heart than her often self righteous daughter. It came from a woman who let me read Isaiah 53 to her and thought I was reading from the New Testament because she recognized I was reading about Jesus an astonished woman who then took my Bible home with her and promised to read it. Yes, this woman always belonged to God but didn't know it until the very end. And neither did I. That darkest hour of my grief when I thought God might not have answered and saved her reminds me of another Mother I want to honor today the Mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ sweet Mary, the handmaiden of the Lord. "All generations will call me blessed", she said, so let us join in to remember and honor her today. Think of how her heart was pierced as she saw her beloved Son die. How dark things looked, how wrong they seemed. Who could fathom this awful thing? How could God the Father forsake Him? The Hope of the world lay dead in the grave, while His Mother's heart lay shattered. But three days later what joy, what victory! Death and the grave were defeated! We all know that now but Mary (and many others) lived those awful three days in utmost anguish. Imagine how her spirit must have leapt when she saw Him again and the balm was applied to her pierced heart. She beheld the fruit of her obedience, her sacrifice, her own piercing and knew that through her, God had blessed the whole world with His Son. "Happy Mother's Day Mary!"
|
|
|---|---|