The Faith We Share — Carol McLeod Ministries

Mother’s Day, 2019. 

My parents were still in town, and Eileen, my mother-in-law, visited too. 

“Mum, he’s the most stable he’s been in quite a while. Do you want a cuddle?” The nurse asked.

Mom and I just looked at each other wide-eyed, and wept. Mom put her arms around me and held me as I cried.

Two excruciating weeks without holding my son. Two weeks where we all wondered if the next time I would hold him would be as he passed away. 

But now, it was really happening. He would survive.

An hour later, Michael was in my arms again. The nurse made an exception to the two visitor rule and allowed both my mom and Eileen to be with me while I held him. My mom sat next to us, and Eileen stood over us. We all stared at Michael. The Mother’s Day we didn’t think would come. Yet there we were. Three mothers. Three generations. All of us, part of him. 

I’ve come to understand a lot about mothers. Namely that mothers understand mothers. Mothers understand the fragility of life. Mothers understand the pull, the heart-wrenching, piece-of-me-outside-my-body, divine longing for their child to be okay. 

“We are going to be okay,” I told them. 

“Please, God.” Eileen begged.

“Praise God.” My mom declared.

*

There is something magical in the faith of women. Particularly in the courage and steadfast nature of their faith. Their willingness to persevere in their faith when those around them fall. In my life, faith has been passed down through the maternal lines. 

My mom’s mother, Grammie Fay, devoutly a lover of Jesus, met Him when she was young. He saw her through the early loss of her mother, a father who worked away, an abusive marriage, and gave her the strength to leave her husband in an era when women didn’t leave their husbands, let alone the fathers of their children. She sang in the church choir for decades. She studied her Bible daily. Upon her passing I read her notes, written in the margins. She longed to be close to Him. To love Him.

My dad’s mother, Grammie Ruth, also a member of church’s choir, had a quieter faith. She was the type of straight-shooter who would walk out of church before the sermon on tithing Sunday, a Sunday when the pastor would lay out the Biblical reasoning for giving ten percent of one’s income to the Church. She’d walk down from the choir and out of the church via the center aisle just to prove a point. What she gave, and generously she did, was between her and God. She did the church bookkeeping, and I’m certain on the months there were shortfalls, they miraculously disappeared. 

And then my mother. I observed my mom being altruistic in her faith. She worshipped through service. She ran covered-dish suppers, the Christmas bazaar fundraiser, and our Church’s chapter of United Methodist Women. She made sure my sister and I went to church every Sunday and attended children’s choir practice every Wednesday. 

She let us come to our own conclusions, but that didn’t mean she took things lightly. She wouldn’t let us take communion until we could explain to her what it meant. I was annoyed with her when my cousins could go up for the bread and juice, and I’d be sat in the pew. But I’ll never forget the day I passed her test.

“Mom, it’s not fair that Heidi, Jeremy, and Daniel can take communion, but I can’t,” I complained in the car as we were leaving church one Sunday. I was eleven. 

“You can take communion when you can tell me what it means.” She replied, as she always did. 

“Mom, Jesus gave his life so that we could be close to God. He took all the terrible things we did when He died on the cross. So when we take the juice and bread we are remembering His body, and what He went through.” I told her, unrehearsed, in an annoyed tone.

“So, can I take communion next month?” I added. 

“Yes, you can take communion.” She said sternly, without the accolade I was seeking. 

She knew the topic was too personal, too important, for the stroke of an ego. This was faith.

And now, three decades later, I think of her every time I take communion. And whilst, at eleven, I couldn’t begin to comprehend what it all truly meant, on the floor of those hospitals, I was sure glad she took it all so earnestly. And praise God, she gave me the foundation of faith to turn to, whilst letting me work it all out for myself.

I like to think that now, I have a bit of all of these faithful women in me. Grammie Fay’s longing to walk with Jesus in her every day. Grammie Ruth’s pragmatism and generosity. And my mother’s steady, service-oriented reverence for the faith we share.