Today is my mom's birthday, July 9th. She would have been 64. Unfortunately, she passed away from breast cancer on November 22, 2020. Our relationship was complicated, but this morning I started remembering one of the best things she did for me and my siblings -- when we were growing up, she would write out long passages of Scripture on big sheets of paper and hang them up on the wall by the dining room table, and she would lead us in reciting them together before meals.
I started thinking through Romans 6, one of the passages we memorized, to see how much I could remember, and I could make it through almost to verse 12 before I got the sentences mixed up. So I got out my journal and copied out the whole chapter -- it took me from 6:49 to 7:16am, time well spent in recovering those precious memories -- both of her and of the message from God or "form of teaching" that she "entrusted" us to (Romans 6:17). When I think through those verses, I still hear them in her voice.
Happy birthday, Mom. I don't know why, but a lot of our early pictures together involve books in the background. Thanks for teaching me and loving me. See you again soon.
