A Tribute to our Mom: by Jo Anne

Mother loved to paint lighthouses. She often referenced this scripture under her signature: "Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12

Celebrating her 80th birthday

If I’d only known it would be the last time I would ever get to say hello, or goodbye, or I love you. How much more I would have said to you that last day. How many more questions I would have asked you, that now have no answers. I would have hugged you harder and longer. I would have sung one more song with you. So much, I would have done differently. 

My Mom was a beautiful woman. Her beauty radiated from her heart. A heart that loved God fully and without reservation. This beautiful woman taught me more about life, and death, than you can imagine. She taught me to love, with my whole heart. She taught me how to forgive, completely. She taught me how to cook - the old fashioned way. She taught me how to sew and how to make a home. She shared her love of music with me, and with so many others. She loved my Dad, my sisters and me. When we all grew up and got married, she loved our husbands, like the sons she never had. When we had children, she loved them and when they had children, she loved even more.

 She loved teaching the Word of God to young women, and in later years to more mature women, and did so in Sunday School for 53 years. She opened her home to high school girls after school and young married women in the mornings to share with them her love of the Lord and teach His word. 

She devoted her life to serving the Lord, and her family. She sacrificially, faithfully and lovingly cared for her parents and my Dad’s parents in her home for many years. I could write a book about how she lived the life of a Proverbs 31 Woman. 

The most important thing she taught me was about Jesus, my Rock and my Salvation. The only thing she ever truly wanted in life was to know that her family, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and for generations to come, would come to know the Lord as their personal Savior and would live a life of service to Him. 

There will never come a day that I don’t miss her or wish I could talk to her just one more time. When I woke up this morning, I was not able to call her and say Happy Mother’s Day or I love you Mom. And, as always, it made me sad. But, because of who she was, because of the life she lived, because I can rest assured, with peace in my heart about where she is, I do not grieve. . . not as those who are lost, without hope, grieve. I mourn the loss of my Mother in my life, but I will not grieve. I will, instead, rejoice that I was privileged to have this beautiful, amazing woman in my life, that I was honored to call her my Mom and my friend. She was loved so much more than she ever knew or would have believed.

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” 

I Thessalonians 4:13-14