EP 64: 8 Crucial Things My Mom Got Right

Today is my mom’s 87th birthday, and this episode is in her honor. I’m immeasurably blessed to have the mother God gave me, and have learned so much from her over the years. Today I’m sharing 8 crucial things my mom got right, so you can benefit from her good example, too.

8 Things My Mom Did Right

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE 64

Hello, Friend. Welcome to Episode 64 of Loving Life at Home. Today – October 21 – is my mother’s 87^th birthday. I got to see her over the weekend, but I  teach co-op classes all day on Mondays, so I won’t be able to celebrate with her today.

However, she is probably my most faithful listener to this podcast – I know that at least 2 people will tune in to every episode: One is my mother and another is my daughter-in-law Rebekah – so I thought dedicating this episode to Mom would not only be a great way to honor her, but would also allow you to learn and benefit from the wonderful example I’ve been so blessed to observe and enjoy, not just in my childhood years, but throughout my entire life. With every passing year, my appreciation for my mother grows deeper and deeper.

She is the embodiment of Proverbs 31. Verse 15: “She rises while yet it is night,” verse 17: “She sets about her work vigorously,” verse 25: 2 verse 26: “She opens her mouth with skillful and godly wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness,” and verses 27-31 (in the Amplified version):

“She looks well to how things go in her household, and the bread of idleness [discontent, gossip, or self-pity] she will not eat. Her children rise up and call her blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired); Her husband also, and he praises her, saying, ‘Many daughters have done nobly, virtuously, and well [with the strength of character that is steadfast in goodness], but you excel them all.’ Charm and grace are deceptive, and [superficial] beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD [reverently worshiping, obeying, serving, and trusting Him with awe-filled respect], she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates [of the city].”

My mother did so many things well, it would be impossible to enumerate them all, but I’d like to touch on a handful of really important things she got right and that we, as wives and mothers, would do well to emulate.

First of all, she…

1. Prayed for me faithfully

James 5:16 tells us, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (KJV) Same true for a righteous woman. NASB says such faithful prayer can “accomplish much.” NIV translates this verse, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

However you shake it, my mother’s faith in God is the bedrock of her life, and she communes with Him through pray and Bible study daily, getting down on her knees – even at 87 – to intercede on my behalf and on behalf of all my children and grandchildren whom she prays for by name. That is powerful! It has been a wonderful example which I’ve striven to emulate. And God has been so faithful to honor those prayers! 

If you want to make prayer a more integral part of your life but don’t know where to start, I have a lot of free, printable Bible-based prayer guides to help which I’ll link in today’s show notes, so check them out.

Another thing my mother got right is that she…

2. Honored my father

She honored him just as the Bible commands wives to do:

• Ephesians 5:22 – “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.”
• Ephesians 5:33 – “Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”
• Colossians 3:8 – “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

My mother took all those commands seriously and lived by them. My father was not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but I sure thought he was when I was growing up, because my mother was so faithful to honor and respect him and to cause her children to do the same.

I was what people called a daddy’s girl when I was younger. I thought my dad hung the moon, and my mother was content to let Dad shine untarnished in my estimation – which was really a humble and unselfish thing for her to do.

She could’ve grumbled at him when he was being difficult, or made snide remarks under her breath, or pointed out all the ways he wasn’t perfect to disabuse me of that notion, but she didn’t.

As an adult, I now realize that my sweet daddy did have faults (I know this primarily because I struggle with some of the same tendencies). He was stubborn and hard-headed. He was very creative and did beautiful work but took forever to finish some projects which meant my mother had to make peace with the disordered mess he generated in the meantime. He loved to argue – a love my mother definitely didn’t share (I’d get easily drawn into Dad’s debates when I was younger, but have become much more like Mom as I’ve aged).

The point is, Mom loved and respected Dad in spite of his flaws and compelled me to love and respect him too, which I did wholeheartedly.

And speaking of love, that’s another thing Mom got right. She…

3. Loved me sacrificially

John 15:13 tells us, “Greater love has no one than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends.”

And my mother certainly laid down her life for her family on a daily basis. She daily lived out Philippians 2:3-4:

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

• She sacrificed sleep when I was sick or had a bad dream or needed her help to meet some deadline.
• She sacrificed her preference for a perpetually clean and tidy house by letting me paint and sew and craft to my heart’s content.
• She sacrificed her desire to stay at home with her children when it became necessary for her to go back to work to help make ends meet.
• She sacrificed the opportunity to advance in her company, because accepting the new position would’ve meant uprooting our family, and she didn’t want to take me and my sister away from the friends and schools and church where we were flourishing at the time.
• She sacrificed peace and quiet by opening our home to my friends for game nights and study sessions and church fellowships and ice cream socials and caroling parties and pancake breakfasts and more. 1 Peter 4:9 tells us to “Show hospitality to one another without complaining.” And she and dad both modeled that beautifully, and my husband and I have done our best to emulate their example. I loved growing up in the house where people naturally congregated, and I love providing that same kind of welcoming environment for my kids and their friends and families.
• Even after I was married, Mother continued to make sacrifices, spending what little free time she had babysitting my children whenever we asked, playing board games with us every Friday night, hunting garage sales with me every Saturday morning, hosting my growing family for Sunday dinner every week (and feeding us any other time every time we showed up on her doorstep, which was pretty often while my husband was in school).

The funny thing is, she never acted like any of these things were a sacrifice.

Maybe her love for us was so overpowering, it didn’t feel sacrificial at all. But sometimes now, when I feel bone weary when my teenager needs to talk, or my plans for a quiet evening spent reading a book gets derailed when a group of friends and grandkids descend on the house for a movie night, or somebody spills glitter all over my freshly mopped floors – which, let’s be honest, is still likely to be me – I laugh and marvel at how my mother had the reserves of energy to face similar situations with so much patience and grace.

Another thing my mother got right? She…

4. Read to me

When I was little, I would accost my mom with a stack of picture books almost as tall as I was, and she would read them all to me, no matter how many times she’d read them before….

Ecclesiastes 12:12 says, “the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.”  And I’m sure my poor mother would’ve said a hearty AMEN to that on occasion. She used to read until she got so sleepy, she’d start making up words instead of reciting what was actually written on the page, and we’d elbow her and say, “No, no, that’s not how it goes,” and she’d back up and try again.

Now once my sister and I started school, we didn’t read with mom nearly as much. And reading chapter books as a family was not really a part of my childhood like it is for my own children, probably because I attended public school and had a lot of assigned reading to do with those classes, whereas my kids are homeschooled and the read-alouds are a big part of their education. Nevertheless, my mother put me and my sister in good stead by reading to us so much before we ever started kindergarten.

And now that I’m grown, my mother travels a lot with our family and gets to enjoy a lot of the audiobooks we listen to on the road, which has been a lot of fun to get her perspective on lots of those. For instance, when we were listening to several of the Little House books on our way to visit Laura Ingalls Wilder’s homesteads in Missouri and Kansas and South Dakota, we’d stop the book after ever chapter and quiz mom about her childhood and how much it matched up or deviated from Laura’s.

A love of reading was just one aspect of education my mother kindled in me, though. I’ve talked in earlier episodes about how she would teach me everything she knew about anything I wanted to learn, then would find others who were proficient at crocheting or piano or painting or science or sewing or whatever topic had piqued my interest at the time and have them teach or tutor me.

Another thing my mom did well was discipline. She and Dad both…

5. Established clear boundaries

The rules were well-defined and clearly communicated, and they were consistent about following through with consequences when we crossed them. Mom has always claimed that consistency is the hardest part about being a parent, and I think she’s right.

Sometimes, especially when you’re tired or distracted, it is just so tempting to let your child’s poor behavior or disobedience slide. But that is not best for you or for your child. And it sends mixed signals.

For instance, if your child is picking fights with his little brother, and you crack down on that behavior one day, ignore it the next, laugh it off the next, then get mad at the brother being bullied instead of dealing with the one who’s doing the bullying the next, then your kids will have no idea what the real rule is.

If you promise one consequence but never follow through, you are training your child to distrust or disregard everything you say.  You’re also teaching him that rules don’t mean anything and that he doesn’t have to listen or respect authority. And that, in turn, is setting him up for a lifetime of trouble.

Proverbs 9:18 reads,

“Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise you will ruin their lives” in the NLT. The NIV translates that verse, “Discipline your children, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to their death.”

But thankfully, inconsistency was not a problem for my parents, and when my mother told me to do one thing or not to do another, I knew she meant business and that I would suffer the consequences if I disobeyed.

And – I’ll just say it – one of those clearly defined consequences was a spanking, although my parents never spanked me for honest mistakes or misunderstandings. Nor did they ever take their frustration out on me or spank me in anger.

But for serious offenses, like lying or defying a direct command or intentionally hurting anyone, like when I pulled a chair out from under my sister just to watch her fall on the ground? You better believe I got a spanking for that.

And I am so grateful I did, because it let me know how very seriously my parents took the things that God takes seriously. God commands us not to lie or steal or kill (which is an extreme form of hurting others), He tells children to obey their parents in the LORD. And so it was fitting that these same commands were upheld in my childhood home. I’m glad my parents loved me enough to instill in me a respect for God and for His commands.

You may have heard the old saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” but that is not what the Bible actually says. Proverbs 3:24 reads,

“He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”

Disciplining diligently. Consistently. Lovingly. And never in anger or frustration: That’s another thing my mother got right. But she also…

6. Allowed me lots of freedom

When the boundaries are drawn clearly and in such a way as to make them no more onerous than they have to be, it leaves a whole lot of room to explore and experiment and grow and learn.  I already mentioned my mother’s willingness to let me learn all sorts of artistic skills and handcrafts, but she and Dad also gave me a lot of liberty in my free time.

Ginny Yurich has a book out called Until the Streetlights Come On – and that was definitely the rule for me growing up. I was allowed to spend hours alone at the park down the street, playing on the playground, exploring the creek bed, catching frogs and tadpoles, building forts, climbing trees, and the like.

Of course, that was a different era, and my little corner of the world was much safer then than it is now. You may have to get creative to give your young explorer similar independent and formative experiences to the ones my parents gave me, but it is well worth the effort. And that’s the beauty of raising well-disciplined children who have a clear understanding of right and wrong: They can be trusted to behave properly, even when you aren’t hovering over their shoulder.

And that trust? That’s another thing my Mom got right. (I keep saying Mom, because it’s her birthday and my Dad’s been gone for 18 years now, but he got all these things right, too.)

But when, as a child, you understand your parents are allowing you to do things and go places that maybe none of your peers are getting to do, because they trust you to behave – that’s a confidence you don’t want to break or abuse or take for granted.

As an aside, though, there were some things I didn’t get to do, not because my parents didn’t trust me but because the other people involved had not yet earned their trust. I don’t want to imply that they threw caution to the wind and let me and my sister do whatever we pleased. They didn’t. But they did try to find ways to say “yes” as often as they could or – if what I was asking to do was outside their comfort zone – they’d try to come up with a compromise that accomplished both my goal to do whatever the thing in question was, and their goal to keep me safe in the doing.

7. Took me to church

Again, my dad was there every time the door opened, too, but I appreciate the fact that it was never a question about what our family would be doing on Sunday morning. It didn’t matter how late we stayed up on Saturday night, there was never a week that we slept in on Sunday morning.

Hebrews 10:24-25 commands,

 “Let us consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

My mother has always lived out that verse, too.

As an interesting aside, earlier this month, I attended a reunion in honor of a man named David Drake who served as our church’s youth minister when I was in high school. He and his wife Marilyn were celebrating their 50^th anniversary, and they drove back to Dallas to meet with about 15 of us who were in that youth group back in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Like most of those young people, I hadn’t seen this beloved youth pastor in over 40 years, but I’m so grateful for his impact on my life. Back in those formative years, David really drilled home the importance of staying in the book, staying on our knees, and staying after souls – and most of the activities we did as a youth group were aimed at one of those three goals: we had lots of Bible studies and prayer meetings and mission trips.

It is worth noting that my mother modeled those same priorities of Bible study, prayer, and evangelism. She has always been ready and “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks [her] to give the reason for the hope that [she has]… with gentleness and respect.”

Of course, it’s sometimes good for kids to hear those kinds of messages from somebody else, too. And I’m grateful God put David and Marilyn in my life to reiterate the lessons I was learning at home. But I wouldn’t have been there to hear it at all if my mother hadn’t been so faithful to ensure my regular church attendance.

I could go on and on with this list of things my mother did right, but her birthday’s going to be over if I don’t wrap this episode up and get it posted, so I’ll end with this:

My mom did a great job when she…

8. Empathized with me

She knows how to “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn,” as Romans 12:15 tells us to do.

Whenever I was excited about something, my mother’s eyes sparkled too. Whenever I was sad, I could see tears in her eyes, as well.  I remember once in grade school being absolutely distraught over my lack of non-fickle friends. As I dissolved into tears at the kitchen table, I could hear the lump in my mother’s throat as she said resolutely, “Well, we can do something about that.” 

She then took me by the hand and spent the afternoon going from one house in our neighborhood to the next looking for a little girl my age who would play with me. Looking back on this incident now as an adult, I realize she probably didn’t go to every house. More likely than not, she’d seen children playing at the homes we visited and just kept checking that handful until we found somebody at home.

But at the time, I was just so thrilled and impressed that my mom would go to such great lengths to meet a perceived need in my life.

I know going door-to-door in pursuit of a friend may sound a little pathetic to some people, but do you know what? Her doing so led to the discovery of one of the very best and dearest friends I’ve ever had.

I don’t mean the timid little age mate who consented to come outside and skip rope or ride bikes with me that afternoon. I don’t even remember that girl’s name – I’m thinking it was Darla, but can’t say for certain.

No, the friend I’m referring to is the one who was holding my hand during the house-to-house search. I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, but that woman has my back and has been a true friend to me through thick and thin. She’s constant. She’s loyal. She’s encouraging. She loves Jesus and believes the Bible, reads, memorizes, and applies it to her live. She’s smart and witty and fun to be around. You couldn’t hope for a better example or a wiser counselor. I know she’s listening, so Happy Birthday, Mother. I love you more than words can express!

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