{"id":71116,"date":"2025-05-11T01:51:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T05:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=71116"},"modified":"2025-05-10T08:23:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:23:55","slug":"mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2025\/05\/11\/mothers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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My mom was a remarkable woman.\u00a0 She was a college graduate from the school that became UNC-Greensboro though neither of her parents went to college. She became a widely sought after piano teacher, and taught at both Salem and Queens college as well as giving private lessons in her home and playing at churches.\u00a0 She instilled in me and my sister Laura a lifelong love of music\u2014 ranging from classical to hymns to rock and roll to jazz to country to bluegrass and more. Mom was a faithful Christian all her adult life, growing up in a Southern Baptist Church in Wilmington N.C.\u00a0 She once told me that as a young girl she heard \u2018a hellfire sermon\u2019 that scared her to death.\u00a0 As for me, being raised in the Methodist Church, I don\u2019t remember ever hearing such a sermon.<\/p>\n

My mom had an iron will and she ran a tight but loving and compassionate ship, earning her the nickname I gave her\u2013 the Velvet Sledgehammer.<\/p>\n

When I was planning to go off to England to do my PhD in 1977, Mom was not entirely happy with that decision because: 1) I was broke, and 2) since I had been pursuing ministerial orders already, she was counting on her only son coming home and being a UM preacher in N.C.\u00a0 It was my grandfather, her dad, James Arthur West, who told her to hush because there was a call of God on her son\u2019s life and he needed to do further study.\u00a0 You can hear more of this tale in the collection of Pop West\u2019s Sunday school lessons I put together in a book entitled\u00a0Twice on Sundays<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0Here he is\u2026<\/p>\n

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Mom made it well into her 90s outliving her husband Ben, before dementia sadly struck.\u00a0 A late highlight was a surprise 90th birthday celebration with a bunch of relatives from both sides of the family at Wrightsville Beach.\u00a0 It was the only time I remember seeing her totally surprised, even shocked.\u00a0 A low light was the day my sister and I had to put Mom into a care facility, something she never wanted to have happen, but we could not manage her any more.\u00a0 I will always hear her last words to me spoken through tears when we got her to her final home, \u2018please don\u2019t leave me here\u2019 and I had to explain to her that my sister Laura, whom by that point she didn\u2019t even recognize sometimes, couldn\u2019t look after her any more, and Mom had always said she didn\u2019t want to be a burden to her children in the end.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, the Lord took Mom shortly after I took her to the care facility.\u00a0 \u00a0The major problem with the advances in modern medicine is that frequently it allows people to live longer than they really want to, it allows them to \u2018out punt their coverage\u2019, particularly their medical coverage.\u00a0 And for a Christian who firmly embraces the gift of everlasting life from Jesus, it is not necessary for one to extend one\u2019s physical existence over and over again.\u00a0 Life is not too short, when its everlasting.\u00a0 The modern mantra \u2018this life is all there is, try an extend it as long as one can\u2019 may be a mantra of secular medicine, but its not one that comports with Christian faith.<\/p>\n

Laura and I miss you a lot Mom, specially on days like today.\u00a0 I do wonder which heavenly piano Mom has talked St. Peter into allowing her to play the hymns on while awaiting the return of Christ, and the bodily resurrection which will be immune to the failings of this body, immune to suffering, sin, and sorrow, disease, decay, and death.\u00a0 It will indeed be a glorious day when the Christians are raised, and given a body like that of the risen Christ.\u00a0 \u00a0It is a future devoutly to be wished.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mom was a remarkable woman.\u00a0 She was a college graduate from the school that became UNC-Greensboro though neither of her parents went to college. She became a widely sought after piano teacher, and taught at both Salem and Queens college as well as giving private lessons in her home and playing at churches.\u00a0 She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":71068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15490,15487],"class_list":["post-71116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-moms-only-great-grand-child","tag-the-featured-image-is-of-elliot-arthur-witherington"],"yoast_head":"\nMother's Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My mom was a remarkable woman.\u00a0 She was a college graduate from the school that became UNC-Greensboro though neither of her parents went to college. 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