“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
- Deuteronomy 5:16
“Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.
- Exodus 21:15
“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.
- Exodus 21:17
For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)—then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
- Mark 7:10-13
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
- Luke 12:49-53
Boilerplate
I’m Harold Dykstra. I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story. My time is well spent. A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel. I did not know she was an angel at the time. The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone. And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy. She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others. She changed my life.
In her leaving, she said someone would come. I had thought that was Jesus, in His second coming, but a new Babs, a little older, the model for the posable action figure arrived. While I had no desire to start over with romance, Morrie helped her move in, thinking she was the other Babs who had returned.
This Week’s Question
Last week, Babs lost a day, not knowing what day of the week it was. It happens to all of us at times.
This week, she was looking back at a Mother’s Day that we really did not celebrate very well.
We were sitting on the deck, watching the birds gather food.
Babs asked, “How was your mother? Was she nice?”
I mused, “Oh, I suppose she was. When you grow up with your mother always being there, you have little to compare. Sure, there was the neighbors off to the left. You almost always smelled the sweet aroma of chocolate chip cookies. My mother worried that the neighbor’s cookies would spoil my appetite. The mother to the right was screaming at her children all the time. My mother was soft spoken. Why do you ask?”
Babs sighed, “We never said a word about Mother’s Day this past Sunday. Then, they passed a white carnation to each of us in memory of our mothers who had died, and I started thinking. I never knew my birth mother. Then, my father came home with a stripper to act as my mother. They eventually married, but as I started to develop, my stripper mother turned me into a porn star. I was never taught about God, Jesus, or the Bible. But the Bible says we should honor our parents. How can you honor people who led you astray?”
I sighed, “God gave us to the parents that we had. They may not have been perfect. No one is perfect except God. They may not have ever tried to be a good parent, but God gave us to them for a purpose. So, in honoring our parents, we learn how to honor the God that makes those decisions. We do not have to make sense of it. We can rejoice in the good times, and we can learn from the bad times. I have had friends give their testimony and they said that what they learned from their parents was everything not to do. But even then, what drove that friend to God? They might have come to Him to learn what love was all about.”
Babs asked, “Is that why I had this burning desire to find you once the dreams stopped? I was looking for someone who could explain the mysteries of God, and I knew you could.”
I shrugged, “I don’t know about that. And frankly, I might have had dreams about the same two people for over a year, but I do not know if I would believe that those people were real. I think that was God guiding you here. If it were me, I might have stayed in Arizona.”
Babs leaned in close to me. “Look at me, Harold. Are you blind? If you had dreamed about this body for over a year, every night, would you really simply roll over and go back to sleep?”
I sighed, “Babs, until you walked into the food bank that day. I thought I would be in this house alone until I went home to be with Jesus.”
Babs scrunched her nose. “The way I saw it, you were wanting the young Babs to stay around. Don’t tell me you still don’t miss her.”
I mused, “She’s still here. We just don’t see her that often. But I said what I did about not looking for you for a few reasons. One is that it was a dream, but somehow, you knew it was more than a dream. One is that I can live comfortably here with what I have, but I might not if I sold everything and moved to Arizona. And I have my work to do here with the food banks and helping with the “selling” of the FHAT, Feeding the Homeless at Tracy. But that changes nothing about how I feel that you are in my life. And all that kept me here can be shared with you.”
Babs started breathing heavy. “Harold, that almost sounded like a proposal.”
I smiled, “Give it time. But we were talking about mothers, way back, half hour ago.”
Babs giggled, “Not that long ago. But God told us to honor our parents. There were rules about attacking our parents or cursing our parents. I guess we could do all that without love. It would be hard, but doable.”
I nodded, “Yeah, I suppose. But then, Jesus challenged the Pharisees. They knew all the things that you just mentioned, but then they took their extra cash and put it in an account that was dedicated to God. They could still withdraw from the account, but they used this dodge so that when their parents roof needed fixing, they could say that the money was designated for God. That says to me that our parents are our parents until the day they die.”
Babs said, “But what about Luke 12. Jesus came to bring fire, but it was not time for that. But He did come to bring division, and He talked about divisions within families.”
I nodded, “I have seen many families crumble when one person in the family is a true believer, and the rest of the family is not. Of course, when one person in a very devout family strays, that can tear up a family too. That does not mean that the believers in the family do not pray for the other person, but it can be really rocky with them all under one roof. The one that is the outsider will find some way of escaping.”
Babs scrunched her nose, “But if God created the family for all the benefits, why break up the family because one becomes a believer? And why make all these dysfunctional families?”
I reached over and held her hand. “See the birds? You might think everything works perfectly for them, but then you have other birds that are egg stealers or nest stealers. This world is broken. If you look closely after the eggs have hatched, the baby birds will poop just like anyone else, but the poop is in a little sack. The parents, since we are talking about parents, will take that poop and fly away from the nest and dive bomb it on the ground somewhere. I’ve watched them do it.”
Babs asked, “Why do they do that?”
I snickered, “The poop is in a sack because God designed it that way. The parents drop the poop somewhere other than near the nest so that predators will be attracted to the smell, but they won’t find the baby birds there. It is one of the ways God protects the little birds. But as for humans, we each make our own choices and sometimes one person’s choices are so contrary to the rest of the family that it causes unreconcilable differences. But on the other side of the coin, I have seen one person in the family become a Christian and then everyone else in the family sees the positive changes in that one person that the entire family came to Christ. That does not happen often, but it has happened.”
Babs sighed, “So, we sin and that messes up everything. Mothers aren’t perfect, but they are what God gave us and like every gift from God, we should love them and honor them. But if our love for God causes conflict in the family, we might have to part ways, but then we still honor and respect our parents.”
I nodded, “That was a very good summary, but we did not do something that we should have done this past Sunday.”
Babs asked, “And what is that? You are my leader you know. If you mess up, I will probably follow you down the wrong path.”
I snickered, “We didn’t make a fuss about the two mothers that we do have in the family.”
Babs asked, “Go to your mother’s grave or something?”
I snickered, “No, Willie and Sadie. The mothers of our grandchildren. And yes, if they call you Grand Babs, they are your grandchildren.”
Babs scrunched her nose, “But then, why didn’t they shower me with gifts?”
Then we heard someone clear his throat in the kitchen. We turned around to see Morrie, Sadie and their children.
Sadie came out and hugged Babs. “Our children have been fussy all week. I got breakfast in bed, but we did not celebrate you as being our new Mother in the family. We have some flowers in a pot, hyacinths, Dad loves the smell and then you can put the bulbs in the fridge or plant them this fall. They’ll come up every year for a while. And the kids want to make you Strawberry Shortcake, complete with the whipped cream.”
Babs smiled, “Goodie! I can’t wait. We’ve finished supper and we were doing an informal Bible study while watching the birds getting a late evening snack. We could use some dessert.”
As we went into the kitchen to see Morrie’s nearly grown grandchildren chopping strawberries, Willie and her crowd came in. Honestly, we are going to have to change the locks.
But after the dessert, Babs told Sadie and Willie that she thought I was about to propose a little earlier. The daughter and daughter-in-law were getting excited.
I cleared my throat, “I am still not ready for that kind of proposal, but let me ask you this. If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”
Babs handed her glasses to Willie, “Can you hold these for me? I think that’s a cue for some serious smooching.”
While we were kissing and everyone was watching, hoping I was getting ready for something permanent in our relationship, Willie’s kids grabbed the cans of whipped cream and squirted the cream directly into their mouths. Dysfunctional or just a family having fun, we were a family that loved God, now that Morrie turned over a new leaf.
And Babs was fitting in nicely.
Credits
All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife. We would talk about anything and everything. And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.
I have only noticed a blackbird with a nest in the deck’s rafters, but the robins still look for food in the backyard. And I have seen the dive bombing adult birds carrying the sacked poop away from the nest.
And the idea of Mother’s Day can be a strange thing for those who never knew their mothers, a time of grief for those who recently lost their mothers, or a mixed bag of emotions for those who had a mother that was not what you might think of as a good mother. When the commandment says to honor our parents, there is no conditional statement there, only a promise of a long life if we honor them.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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