The Pilgrim Path---Proverbs 31: 30 

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

A WOMAN WHO FEARS THE LORD…

Mother’s Day is almost here. I think about my Mom sometimes. It is interesting what will jog my memory. She was the first one to read to me from a Bible Story Book. She took me to church with her friend Helen. Church seemed odd at first---but I grew to like it. My Mom and I were baptized at the same church service in 1967 (hard to forget that). She taught me about the significance of tithing. She taught me about doing my best in schoolwork---even if it was difficult. “Just do your best,” my Mom would say. She reminded me that all sorts of people attend church: people who know the LORD Jesus Christ---and people who do not. She passed on a great deal of wisdom.

We really had to work through some matters after my Dad died. It was a struggle of terrific proportions losing the “only” soul she had ever even dated. It took her 24—30 months just to begin to get her feet under her again after my Dad’s death. She had been drawn to the LORD Jesus Christ many years before---but the jarring departure of her spouse, coupled with the toll of mounting disease in her own body---was quite stressful. Living near me at the end of her life was not exactly what I had planned on. She had already attempted to live close to us around four or five times. On occasion, it about drove me batty---as the less spiritual souls say (and sometimes I join them). With power of attorney in hand and loads of paperwork (and a patient wife), we got my Mom here. The LORD does provide. My Mom and I were to learn things about each other we had never known before. That is a gift (you do not always appreciate it in the process). I came to understand things about my family---and my Mom---I had not realized---until the last two years of her life (those things you say, “Oh---that is what was going on”). All in all, it was eye opening ---and on occasion both sad---and funny!

Mom called assisted living home until her “move” to Glory. When she was able, she walked me to the door and would “wave” me off. I can still see her hunched over (arthritis really cramped her style in later years). My---the trips we had to her doctors. It took her so long---just to get up and down. The wheelchair helped---but it was an ordeal. We would talk about “going on” to Heaven---to the place the Living Christ has prepared for His Own. Like most believers, she did not want to be in the hospital for some incredibly long period of time at “the end of life.” We asked the LORD for a special present: that she might go to sleep---and wake up in Paradise. She got what she asked. Thanks be to God!

We appreciate ALL the women who have pointed us to Jesus Christ the LORD. We are grateful for the contribution each has made in developing our most Holy Faith!

Some Quotes my Mom liked:

“Faith is taking God at His Word.”

“Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up!”

“Faith makes it possible, not easy.”

“Life with Christ is an endless hope, without Him it is a hopeless end.”

Psalm 4: 8 “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone , O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”

HYMN

Let children hear the mighty deeds which God performed of old;

Which in our younger years we saw, and which our fathers told.

Our lips shall tell them to our sons, and they again to theirs;

That generations yet unborn may teach them to their heirs.

Thus, shall they learn in God alone their hope securely stands,

That they may never forget his works but practice his commands.

From Psalm 78: 1 – 7

Isaac Watts, 1719

Grace and Peace in Jesus, the Only Redeemer of broken and wretched souls, Pastor Jason