Welcome to Pearl Girls™ Mother of Pearl Mother's Day blog
series - a week long celebration of moms and mothering. Each day will feature a
new post by some of today's best writer's (Tricia Goyer, Sheila Walsh, Suzanne
Woods Fisher, Bonnie St. John, and more). I hope you'll join us each day for
another unique perspective on Mother's Day.
AND ... do enter the contest for a chance to win a beautiful
hand crafted pearl necklace. To enter, just {CLICK THIS LINK}
and fill out the short form. Contest runs 5/6-5/13 and the winner will on 5/14.
Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents.
If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what we're
all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women
and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of
Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing
Grace or one of the Pearl Girls™ products (all GREAT
Mother's Day gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.
And to all you MOMS out there, Happy Mother's
Day!
Priceless Treasure by Cindy K.
Stiverson
We've heard it said and often find it true:
You don't know the value of a treasure until you're
without it.
We take for granted the things in life that seem so readily
available.
A paperclip or rubber band, to hold
things together.
A tissue or napkin, to wipe our nose to
clean our face, to absorb our tears.
A Bible to speak words of wisdom and
instruction and life and love.
And a Mother, who is all these things and more.
She is readily available.
She holds things together.
She wipes our nose, cleans our face
(and our fingers, and, well…everything else!)
She absorbs our tears and calms our
fears.
"She speaks with wisdom, and faithful
instruction is on her tongue." (Proverbs 31:26)
She loves.
Within hours after my mother passed into the gates of our
heavenly home, I was missing her. Her quick wit…humor…charm. Her warm smile and
melodious laughter, which served her well to the very end, as did our Lord
Jesus Christ, who so graciously allowed her to slip quietly and peacefully into
His arms.
She simply stopped
breathing.
As I stood at her bedside in those priceless moments after
her passing, I wanted to touch her skin as much as possible while there was
still warmth in her body; to nuzzle my nose against her head and breathe in the
scent of her hair while she was still there. Priceless treasures I was guilty
of taking for granted, clouded by unmet needs. I was so consumed with what she
was not, that I never fully appreciated who she was. It’s like I was blind, but
now I see!
I see her strength, her commitment. Her
perseverance…sacrifice…her unspoken love. I see how much she meant to me, how
much she did for me, how much she taught me, and how much of the good in me was
modeled by her.
She was a virtuous woman, as described in Proverbs 31 of the
Bible.
“Her children stand and bless her… a woman who
fears the Lord will be greatly praised. Reward her for all she has done. Let
her deeds publicly declare her praise (vs. 31).”
This last verse of the poem serves as an epitaph for the
woman of virtue. It speaks of the legacy she leaves in her passing. It spurred
me to write a personal epitaph for my mother, which I read at her
funeral.
We publicly declare your praise today,
and in the days to come,
for you deserve to be praised and blessed,
"We honor you, Mom, for all you have
done!"
In my earliest of memories,
You worked so hard, striving for the rest.
You persevered through great trials
and did your very best.
I know you are being rewarded
in ways far beyond our reach.
We honor you now by practicing what you've
taught,
and even what you preached!
You've stood for us for all these years,
Today, we stand for you!
I pray that our applause on earth
will reach your heavenly ears.
With the reading of this poem, I asked everyone to stand. We
clapped our hands in celebration and praise of the life of my mother, Margaret
Alice Stiltner.
Imagine our surprise to discover that she had left a poetic
epitaph for us! She had clipped it from an old magazine and framed it. I found
it when I was cleaning her home, on a nightstand by her bed. My mother was never
versed at expressing emotion. This was her sweet way of kissing us good-bye: a
priceless treasure to remember her by.
###
Exciting News – the latest Pearl Girls book, Mother of
Pearl: Luminous Legacies and Iridescent Faith will be released this month!
Please visit the Pearl Girls Facebook Page (and LIKE us!)
for more information! Thanks so much for your support!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment