This mug has been in my parent’s house a long time. It was my mom’s mug of choice. I remember many Saturday mornings, waking up to cinnamon rolls, and mom asking me if I would make her some coffee, always in this mug. It’s a Longaberger cup, more popular for their handwoven baskets–which my mother collected for the last 25 years of her life, slowly filling the house with baskets of all shapes and sizes. I can’t believe she’s been gone for over a year now. Watching her die was the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced… Even knowing it was going to happen wasn’t enough to soften the impact of it.
Mom left us with a lot of stuff to sort through and box away and give away, but those are just physical things, evidence of her presence in a house that was made into a home by the kind of woman she was, and the character she had. Her kindness and her love were evident to anyone who knew her, or even heard her great laugh–a laugh that can still be heard from my Aunt Charlene–mom’s sister.
I have nothing but a brain full of great memories, and a heart full of the love she passed on to me. But when I try to pinpoint one specifically, I think back to about 15 years ago… I was in college at the time, going through a really rough patch. I had already dropped out once and then returned, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with my life, and the pressure was mounting for me to choose a path. Some people think Bible college is a safe haven of theological reflection and spiritual enlightenment. I suppose it can be that for some… But for me it was a crucible that tore me apart from the inside out and left me with more confusion and questions than clarity and answers. In the midst of one evening, feeling like I wanted to leave and drop out for a second time, I did what any boy would do in my situation… I called the one woman in the whole world who might have the answer–I called mom. And after listening to me whine and sob about the darkness and uncertainty of the world, she told me something that she never had before.
She told me that I did not belong to her. She said that when I was born, God spoke to her, and he said very simply, “this one belongs to me.” And she finished by saying that she couldn’t tell me who I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to do, because I didn’t belong to her. She just told me to ask God. And my mother did many things for me throughout my life, but telling me that was the greatest gift she ever imparted to me.
Because asking God is everything.
The Basmati House Review 