Oh Mama!

Because so many of you blog-readers love stories about my mom, here’s a bit of info. As you read between the lines, you’ll see how she came to be the colorful person she was.

Mom at age 3Mom was born at home in 1912, arriving just before Christmas. Because she was a month premature, she wasn’t healthy, so the doctor told her parents not to name her. That way when she died, he said, they wouldn’t be too attached. And so she remained “Baby” through December and into 1913. By St. Patrick’s Day her father, a full-blooded Irishman, nicknamed her “Pat” after the holiday and called her that the rest of his years.

Eventually they named her Evelyn Pauline after an older brother, Everett Paul, who had died at the age of 8 in a school yard accident.

Mom at 18Growing up during the Depression, she learned to pinch a penny with expertise and made sure we could, too. She married a shy, 42 year old Swede when she was 28. Unable to wait until he popped the question, she proposed to him instead.

When asked what she wanted as a housewarming gift, she said, “Toys for children who might visit us.” Before she had any of her own kids, she made friends with all the neighborhood children, and even while in labor with her first baby, she delayed leaving for the hospital to pass out homemade cookies up and down the block.

Mom's wedding dayAfter having two little girls born 20 months apart, Mom was expecting a third when she began hemorrhaging and was rushed to the hospital. After being given the wrong blood type from an inaccurately labeled bottle, she nearly died. But God had other plans for Evelyn Pauline Pat James Johnson.

Although doctors cautioned Mom not to become pregnant again, our brother Tom came along on Dad’s 50th birthday, a definite bonus to all of us. To this day I think Mom tricked Dad, since she’d wanted nothing more than a houseful of children. Eventually she got her wish with 17 grandchildren, all living local and all in love with their grandma.

Mom plus her 3Mom viewed children as marvels to be cherished, protected and admired. She never encountered a child she didn’t approve of and although her influence rubbed off on them, her greatest joy came when theirs rubbed off on her.

She also loved music and practiced piano daily. In her teens she taught lessons, in her thirties played the four-keyboard organ for Moody Church, and in her prime accompanied enough weddings and funerals to put us through college, though she always gave the money back to the bride instead.

Mom at the Moody organMom memorized entire books of the bible, taught high school Sunday school for decades, and conducted in-home Bible studies throughout her married life. But she also loved a good practical joke and made frequent use of her whoopee cushion, plastic vomit, and artificial dog poop. No wonder kids loved her.

Dad used to say Mom was a risk-taker. Tomorrow I’ll prove it.

“A cheerful heart is good medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22)

Thank you.

Those of us who started attending church when we were on the cradle roll are happy to talk about God. We’re usually faithful to pray, and we’re even comfortable with praying out loud if asked. After all, Jesus became our childhood friend as we met him through flannel-graph stories in Sunday school. Talking to him was much like talking to any of our other friends.

FlannelgraphThen we grew older and learned there was more to it than that. We realized God wasn’t on a par with any of our other friends but was unique, superior, someone who merited reverence and awe, and the utmost of respect.

Eventually we were taught that to fear the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and surely approaching God ought to be done as wisely as possible. Did that mean he wanted us to be afraid of him when we prayed? If so, then why did he tell us to “come as little children” and “come boldly to the throne of grace?” Can we come to him that way if we’re afraid?

At the very least, fearing God probably means respecting his authority and power. He’s the ultimate in both categories and can do anything he wants with anything he’s created, which includes us. If we’re on his bad side, he is to be feared indeed, since he will judge all of mankind. He also wants us to revere him as God of gods, holy and perfect.

While I was contemplating what might be the wisest way to approach the Lord, probably making it more complicated than it needed to be, I heard someone pray a wise prayer. Sandy was asked to pray at the conclusion of our women’s Bible study today. We’d had a discussion about true wisdom and fearing God. If I’d been the one praying, I probably would have started by begging God to give us more wisdom, but not Sandy.

ThankfulnessShe started by thanking God for who he is and continued to list reasons all of us were thankful for him. The middle of her prayer was more gratitude, one thing after another, and she concluded with a final series of thank you’s. Her prayer was all about the Lord and nothing about us.

How unusual, I thought, to pray for several minutes without ever asking for anything. It was simply thank you… thank you… thank you.

And it was wise.

“The Lord said… ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so’.” (Deuteronomy 4:10)

Believing a Lie

Soft ragsMy Mom was a hard worker, doing housework the old fashioned way. She used cloth rags instead of disposables and preferred her own cleaning potions to fancy sprays. She used to say the most practical gift any young bride could receive would be a bag of well-worn, soft rags. I didn’t have the heart to tell her a modern bride wouldn’t think they were a good gift or know what to do with them.

Mom scrubbed her floors on hands-and-knees and didn’t own a mop. “How can you get the corners?” she’d say. Using a rag made sweeping unnecessary, because she’d pick up bits of debris with her rag and rinse them out in her bucket (leftover wash machine water).

One day she was crawling along her kitchen floor, washing away the results of a visit from 6 preschool grandchildren. She loved cleaning up after these little people, calling the aftermath “a happy mess.” She’d scrub sticky Jello leftovers off the linoleum and remember the fun of making Jigglers with them. She’d scoop up Cheerios and think about the pudgy baby eating in the high chair.

Real raisinsOn this day she came across a stray raisin and thought, “Still in good shape,” and popped it into her mouth. One chew told her she’d made a huge mistake. It wasn’t a raisin at all but the product of a toddler’s diaper.

She dropped her rag and got to the bathroom as fast as she could. But brushing her teeth multiple times with lots of toothpaste couldn’t remove the taste from her mouth or the impression from her brain.

All of us have eaten food off the floor. Well, maybe that’s just our family. In any case, her “raisin” wasn’t a raisin at all but merely something that appeared to be. Appearances can be deceiving, and she’d been deceived.

Her experience is a memorable illustration of the way deception works. Our enemy, the devil, is the definitive master of disguises. He lies, cheats, and deceives with expertise, cloaking wickedness in goodness. “Go ahead,” he sweet-talks. “It’ll be even better than you think. No one has to know. You deserve to have things go your way for once.”

On and on he coaxes with endless patience, gently tugging us toward a slimy slope with complete devastation at its end. He never runs out of ideas and uses the exact disguises that are attractive to each one of us, an expert at his craft.

Before we have a chance to check if it’s really a raisin, we’re chewing it.

(Tomorrow: Believing the Truth)

“When the devil lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. There is no truth in him.” (John 8:44)