Legacy

Last Sunday, I had the privilege of spending some "alone" time with my sweet Mama. She was having a pretty good day healthwise, so Ken & Matthew decided to take my dad to run some errands and go for a drive. It was a great and refreshing time for Daddy, and it ended up being a time of beautiful blessing for me, too!
Mama was doing great at first, and seemed to be fine with the fact that my dad was out for awhile. Then, as we went for a walk down the hallways of their retirement community, her mind began to betray her once more. She was worried, agitated, confused, and didn't know where she was. We quickly made our way back to their apartment, and then she began to pace. "Where is Tony? Why isn't he here? I need your daddy." I prayed, "Lord, please help me know how to show her your love right now. Please help me calm her, just like she used to calm me."
Now, my mother is very frail and petite at only about 90 lbs, and she has never been more than 110, but she has a huge sweet tooth! As I prayed about what might calm her down, I could hear her voice through the years as she would often say,"I sure would like just a bite of something sweet! And it would be great to have a sip of something fizzy to go with it." I thought that the Valentine's candy we had brought & the Coke on the counter just might do the trick, and when I offered it to her, she said with a relieved sigh, "Oh, that would be so nice."
As she sat with her piece of chocolate and her small class of Coke, the Lord reminded me of the other thing she always did to calm herself in any time of struggle. I picked up her Bible and asked if she would like me to read it. Her smile was like a ray of sunshine as she said, "Oh yes, please do!"
She has several Bibles, but the one I picked up was a Disciples' Study Bible. She had bought it in the early '80s on a trip to Ridgecrest, but I had no idea she had it. I have that exact same Bible, which I got in early '90s, when I became serious about studying God's word. We had "coincidentally" bought the same Bible! Then, I turned to the inside cover, and I saw where she had written over 20 years ago:
"Ephesians 3:14-21: My prayer for myself, Tony, and all our descendants."
A chill ran up my spine. "Mama", I said,"I know this passage so well. I've been drawn to it over the years, and I've taught on it several times. I even used it as my teaching passage last weekend at the women's retreat for our church!" I quickly turned to Ephesians in her Bible, and it was as though I were looking at my own. The things she had underlined in the introductory theological outline were exactly what I had underlined. The phrases of the passage she had highlighted were marked in mine, too. Notes in the margins were like the notes in mine. I was dumbfounded! I had had no earthly idea that my mom had been praying those words of scripture over me, my husband, my siblings, my child, and all my family, and she had been doing it for years. Yet God knew. And God had led my heart to be molded, changed, and touched by this scripture, and He had led my hands to underline the words that she had prayed for me. I can't help but wonder if I might've ever been reading those words as she was praying them...
What a gift that God would allow my mother to see His faithfulness in the amazement of her child that day! How beautiful that I could share with her, on this side of Heaven, that God had been faithful to hear her prayers and direct my life through them. Their legacy of faith is the greatest gift my parents could ever give.
"For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21