Today marks six months of my life without my mom. Six months to the day, she left us to join dozens of her beloveds’ in heaven. As much as I miss her, I take comfort knowing she is now happier than she has ever been.  

As sick as she was, she never lost her sense of humor. I can honestly say (even on her worst days) she always found something to laugh about.

No one could lift me out of a slump like she could. I’m doing my best to emulate all the wonderful traits I treasured the most…her eternal optimism, humor, gratitude and selflessness. 

She was a beautiful woman inside and out. She always took care to look her best for my dad, regularly getting herself fixed up before he came home from work. Her desire to look good on the outside is the one thing I did inherit from her.

Through some cruel stroke of fate, I wasn't born with curly hair. My parents and siblings all have curls, but much to my mom's dismay, no such luck for me. As soon as I grew enough straight hair to wind around a curler, my mom created curls for me. Though there were nights when I begged to go to bed without my "cur-wers," it was a rare night that Dippity-Do and "cur-wers" weren't part of my bedtime routine. If people got a gander of me after I'd been swimming, they were shocked I didn't really have curly hair (a poser!). I'd overheard my mom tell people I was "just as pretty on the inside."  I didn't feel like I passed muster without curly hair. I wanted to tell their shocked faces that I was still pretty on the inside, even without the curls. Sadly, focusing on being "pretty on the inside" has not been a guiding principle in my life.

The last time I needed to get my passport renewed and knowing I would be looking at it for the next ten years, I made sure I got dolled up for the picture. Despite my efforts to the contrary, my picture was devastating. Good heavens! I looked like I’d aged thirty years! My mom said it was no wonder, after all I had been "put through the mill.”  Well, who knew "the mill" could wreak such havoc? To add insult to injury, as I was checking out, an insensitive beast of a man mistook Brett for my grandson. At that point, I wanted to go sit in the car and have myself a good cry.

I am disappointed that looking old and being mistaken for my son's grandmother derailed me like it did.

Even though I think my mom was at least partly responsible for my somewhat unhealthy focus on the outer me, she was fully responsible for the fact that I know Who and What I need to focus on above all else—Jesus. On my lowest days she steered my thoughts to Him, to His promises, to His abounding love and amazing grace. She knew every word to hundreds of hymns and she clung to the Biblical promises packed into all those old songs.  I know I often relied too much on my mom's advice, but I do know the most important decision of my life had to be made by me alone, and I chose Christ...and for that I am eternally grateful.

                                      "Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

                                      Look full in His wonderful face,

                            And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
                                     In the light of His glory and grace."

I believe the fact that we are born with a sense of how things ought to be is evidence that God exists and that we’re living in a fallen world.

My friend Stacey’s daughter Alisha (like Brett) was born with severe disabilities. Sometimes Alisha giggles for no apparent reason. Often this involuntary giggling occurs at inappropriate times, times when they wish she would remain quiet, like during their meal time prayers.

Stacey tells of a time when her son Caleb was only five years old and became a tad irritated with her giggling during their prayers. When the prayer ended, he asked, "Why did you get her anyway?" (implying she hadn't been one of their better decisions) 

When they told him they’d gotten her before him, he asked exasperatedly, “Well then why doesn’t God just heal her up?" 

Caleb had never known a life without Alisha. It was only as he got a little older that he began to realize how much easier their life would be if God would just "heal her up.” 

I don’t know why God allowed Alisha and Brett to be born with severe disabilities or why He doesn't just “heal them up.” I can only share that I choose to trust in God's Word and His promises, to acknowledge that as far as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than my ways and His thoughts higher than my thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9) 

Of course there have been blessings unveiled in some of the difficulties, but the sharp ache of Brett not being what I think he ought to be never goes away entirely and sometimes it's overwhelming in its intensity. 

The apostle Paul's claim that he was "perplexed but not in despair" (2 Cor. 4) epitomize how I feel about Brett. I take great comfort in the fact that if Paul (of all people!) never got to a state of being un-perplexed, then I can be certain I'll never arrive there—and that's okay— because, like Paul goes on to say, "We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:16-18) 

We can't see the eternal glory that Alisha and Brett are achieving here on earth but we can live "perplexed but not in despair" knowing they will be perfect and whole for all eternity.

When my cousin Jen and I were little we spent many nights at our grandma's house, getting into all kinds of mischief and laughing ourselves silly. 

We were allowed to play anywhere—as long as we stayed away from the river. But surely Grandma wouldn’t care if we just got close enough to look at the river! So look at it we did, and we could hardly believe our eyes when we spotted an old grocery cart halfway submerged in the water. Why it would be just the thing for Grandma! She had a bad knee and when we went grocery shopping she always said how much easier it was to walk with a cart. Why, with her very own cart she'd be able to walk everywhere!

With those thoughts in mind, we scrambled excitedly down the river bank and painstakingly hauled the cart out of the nasty, polluted water. We craftily wheeled it behind the garage and set about getting it spiffed up. After we'd fastidiously gotten all the river muck off of it, we walked down to Northside hardware and used our candy money to buy a can of metallic gold spray paint. 

When it was finally ready to be presented, we led Grandma out by the hand, making her promise to keep her eyes closed. When she opened her eyes we expected a squeal of delight, instead I don't think we'd ever done anything to aggravate her more.

"Where did you girls get that? Why, people will think I stole it! Take it right back where you found it!”

Back to the Rouge River?? Since we weren't supposed to be anywhere near the Rouge River we could hardly tell her we got it out of the river. 

We tried telling her how nice it would be—she’d be able to walk everywhere. She wasn’t seeing the beauty of it, she was just desperate to have it off her property.

I admit there was a certain amount of pleasure giving our bright gold cart a big push and watching it careen down the river bank and splash back into the filthy water. But who could forget the image of the Indian chief paddling through polluted water with a tear running down his cheek? Everyone was supposed to give a hoot and not pollute, but Grandma did say take it back where we found it, so there you go, it had to be done.

Beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? What we saw as a beautiful ticket to freedom, Grandma saw as an ugly contraption that would only serve to label her as a common criminal. 

We are all guilty at times times of caring too much what other people think of us, when all that really matters is what God thinks of us. I used to think my Grandma cared way too much what “the neighbors” would think, but the older I got the more I started caring, too. My dad used to say, “You’d be surprised how little they think of you at all.” I don’t know of anyone who cared less about what mere man thought about him than my dad did, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't try to emulate his determination to live a life pleasing to the Lord and not let the opinions of those around him give him one single moment of concern.

Ever since my mom left us for her eternal home, I’ve been reminiscing about those who preceded her. I know one day I will be able to laugh with my grandma about this story. I love thinking of her with her perfect glorious body with absolutely no need for a golden grocery cart to lean on.