Mama’s birthday has prompted me to express my gratitude for a woman of uncommon love.  It’s not that she wasn’t without her faults.  In fact, she knew her own shortcomings very well.  She knew her own pain, but she didn’t let it rule her life.

I recently heard someone say that we all have wounds.  The question is whether they make us stronger or weaker.  Even as our culture tends to idealize personal strength, Mama knew that strength was also inter-personal.  She modeled this in her relentless pursuit of righteousness, of right-relationship with God and with others.  She was not someone to sit on her feelings or allow her conflicts with others to fester.  She wanted to make it right.

Can you think of the last time you learned someone was upset with, or disappointed in you?  How did you handle it?  I think I usually look for a way to fix it–unless I don’t sense that the other person desires to have it fixed.  Then, I get stuck.  That didn’t stop my mother.  Her faith in the power of reconciliation didn’t blind her to its obstacles.  Her faith inspired her to place a radical trust in the power of love’s intention to overcome fear, anger, and injustice.  She knew it wasn’t enough to pray for peace.  One needed to discover within, the capacity to express love, even when there was no promise of recompense.  When something wasn’t right with someone, she faced her fears and pursued the possibility of healing.

In the year and a half since her death, I’ve heard countless stories of people whose lives were shaped by my mother’s love.  I guess that is the real miracle of love.  It is weakened only when it is not shared.  The more freely it is given, the more widely it is shared, the more deeply it is expressed, the stronger it becomes.

I know what Jesus meant when he bid his disciples to build up, for themselves, treasures in heaven, the kind that could never be stolen or spoiled.  I give thanks for the way Mama’s faith was lived on earth as it is in heaven.