Tribute to My Mother

(On Christmas day, I flew out once again to Lancaster for a memorial service for my mother at Calvary Fellowship Homes. I wrote this out in a journal that my mom had bought for me five years earlier. This is slightly longer than what I said on Saturday, because of time limitations.)

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.

On Christmas eve two days ago, in the courtyard of our church, along with hundreds of others, I held a burning candle. In this twinkling sea of light, my thoughts went back three decades as we sang "Silent Night." My sister and I were visiting my parents on school break in Malaysia where my mom and dad were missionaries. In our Christmas in July, we had no evergreens. But we had gifts and food and love and laughter.

And I recall that we sang "Silent Night." That song reminds me that just as one baby can change a world, one person can make a difference.

"O death, where is thy sting?" My mother's long, meaningful life gives answer to that question00 that her life has touched so many people.

In April, mom suffered a stroke. She spoke only with great effort. To prompt conversation, Anne asked mom "Were you ever a tree climber?"

"Of course," mom replied. "The higher the better." And high aspirations have indeed marked mom's life-- vocationally, socially, and spiritually. In the early years as a missionary, she wrote the following Life Goals.

"1. To get to know my God more and more.

2. Then to allow God to live His life through me to others for His glory."

One of her goals was to accept "the discipline of sepration from the children." Tears of homesickness would scald my cheeks as I watched my parents leave me at the boarding school and home. It was only years later that I realized that my mother had the same tears. And so she dedicated the last quarter century of her life largely to her children with her loving counsel, her wise encouragement, and in her involvement in our lives and the lives of her grandchildren.

Among the last words mom spoke to me were these. "Ever since you were a baby, I have loved you. Good by, dear Philip."

Mom lived for Jesus without condition, but she was my mother as well and that is how I shall always remember her.

Aglow with His spirit, my mother brough sparkle and joy to the lives of countless people in the nine decades of her life. It is perhaps appropriate that mom should leave us at this time when hope springs afresh, love flows from heart to heart, and joy leaps at every song.

Mom once said to me that three things he liked: cats, hard work, and music. And the music she liked the most was Christmas music. For many years, mom performed in the church's cantata and, in the last year of her life, she looked forward to seeing the Christmas pageant at Sight and Sound. Among the songs she sang was "Silent Night". For it puts into a few words the love of her life and the goal of her life.

Silent night, holy night
Song of God, loves pure light
Radient beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at thy birth
Jesus, Lord at thy birth

So, while I do miss mom, I know she would not want me to be sad. And, if she were here, my mother would tell me and each of us that "all is calm, all is bright"