A MOTHER’S LEGACY
Carla Link
I was in high school when my father left my Mom with three teenage girls. It was not common for Christian church-going families to split apart back in the 70’s and fellow church-goers didn’t know what to do with us. (I know, I’m old!) Mostly they ignored us and it hurt. Thankfully, my mother had been involved in Bible Study Fellowship for many years as the class administrator. Her faith remained strong thanks to BSF. She taught my sisters and I how to have our Quiet Times on BSF study notes (intensive Bible training). They invited my mom to join the National Staff of BSF when they learned my father had left her. God showed us through her faith He would always take care of His own.
My mom was not a talker. She was a great listener and was always available to us when we needed to talk. Once when I was frustrated with my husband and was talking about it on the phone to her, she asked me, “Do you want me to be angry with him?” I immediately said I did not. She then told me I needed to stop talking about him in a negative way or she would pick up my offenses towards him. I learned to never make my disputes with my hubby public from my mom.
When I would talk about something going on at school or work, she would say, “And if you were in their shoes?” Through this statement she taught me how to see things from other’s point of view.
In college (I attended a California State University) I was a Young Life leader at a large high school and was involved in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. Young Life is an outreach to non-Christian kids and I did have the privilege of leading several young ladies to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and met with them weekly to teach them how God wanted them to live. Since most of their families were non-believers, there were often struggles to deal with when they tried to put God first in their lives.
When I participated in an outreach event for IVF, opinions often collided among the leadership that I often would be drawn into the middle of. When I shared these struggles with my mom she would say how delighted she was I was in turmoil. When I asked her why, she said that Satan doesn’t attack lukewarm Christians and she could tell the things I was sharing would please God when I saw victory in them so she would pray for me to get there. I learned from my Mom when you are doing something big for God the Enemy will attack. You can count on it. Marrying someone in full-time Christian ministry, this is a lesson that we remind ourselves of on a regular basis.
One of our daughters has a blog and on a recent post she was writing about the oppression she felt from Satan about a project she was working on and went on to say she was okay with it as she had watched us deal with attacks from him throughout her entire life. I smiled when I read that, and thanked God she remembered this lesson. My Mom is no longer with us, but I know she would be smiling too if God whispered in her ear what Briana had written.
These are just a few things I learned from my mother. What have you learned from your mom you are passing down to your kids?