Planting Seeds of Faith




John 19:26-27 “26 When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.”
There is Jesus, whipped, beaten, hanging from a Roman cross, the hope of the world literally on His shoulders and He thinks of His mother. He puts me to shame in every way…even as a son.
It was my mother who read the Bible to me when I was little. It was mom who drove us to Sunday school and to church when dad couldn’t go. It was mom who made sure I learned my part in the Sunday school program, and it was mom who shined when I did it right.
It was mom who always asked me to sing spiritual music when I wanted to do country and pop. Through most of my life it was because of mom that I cared about sin, and it was mom who bought me a bible from Costco one Christmas at a time in my life when God was not near to my thoughts.
When my kids came along I was not yet following the Lord so grandma stepped in and encouraged us to have the daughters dedicated; she took them to Sunday school and enrolled them in Vacation Bible School.
All she ever wanted for Mothers Day was for me to take her to church.
It was mom who planted seeds of faith and left behind reminders that God was not through with me. And it is mom who, at 82 years old, drives twenty miles each way on Sunday morning to attend church with me and my family.
It’s funny that as my kids got older it was their mother, my wife, who took over and took them to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School and later to Youth Group, and sat next to me in church while I reeked of beer from the night before. I guess it’s not funny except that in this regard my wife was so much like my mother.
I am now, by the grace of God, serving God and the spiritual leader of my home (or they let me think that anyway). I have two wonderful adult daughters who are serving God and mentoring the young and setting a fine example. People look at me writing about the Lord and studying and witnessing and they think I’ve done so well by my girls. My girls honor me with their lives and I am so blessed but no one really knows how much God used mothers to make this a reality.
My daughters are who they are because of my mother and their mother and I pray my future grandchildren will one day know why their mothers are so great as my daughters pass along the blessings of a godly mother.