I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you.I didn’t know my mother’s mother. She died before I was born. When I think of her, I see in my mind an old black and white image of her standing in simple clothes, her arms at her sides, looking at the camera. But my mom speaks of her with great love, warmth and respect. Through her, I know my grandmother to have been a woman who loved God and others, who had a down-to-earth sense of humor and loved my grandfather with a great love. And my mom knew she was loved, too. And that makes me wish I could have met my grandmother, gotten to know her, heard her voice.
--Paul to Timothy at the beginning of his second letter
My mother also loves God, likes to laugh and loves deeply. And the faith that filled my grandmother abundantly spills over in her. As a child, I lived and played under my parents' walk with God. In the soil of my heart and mind they planted the seeds of the Kingdom. And I too know that I am loved—a great gift.
Once, as I contemplated my walk and journey with God, I saw unfold a vision of my mother walking with me as a child, holding my hand as she led me to the edge of a desert, one at once like both the beloved Sonoran in which I grew up as well as the one the Israelites walked through after crossing the Red Sea. She stopped and stood there, looking out at the desert, my hand resting in hers, and said simply, “This is where God lives.” I love that image and treasure it. While it didn’t occur in real life, it speaks a deeper and very real truth: my mother has great deal to do with the faith that grows in me.
May the faith that first filled my grandmother and my mother continue strong in me. And may that faith spill through me and into the heart and soul of my daughter, too.
(Image: from “The Mother” via Wikipedia)
