My mother is only 86. I say “only” for a variety of reasons. When I went off to college, so did Mom; she got straight A’s.  Me? Not so much. When I went off to graduate school, Mom started her practice as a nurse; she stayed on the same cardiac floor of St John’s hospital for her entire career.  Me?  Not so much. I moved from New York to Purdue to USF; and within USF, I had titles which ranged from professor to dean to director. When she retired and moved to Virginia, Mom took up serious Bible study.  Me?  My seminary training started a couple years later.

Now she teaches the Scriptures at her local Senior Citizen’s center—she has a retired Methodist pastor, a Jew, several Roman Catholics, and a few curious ones as students. Me? I teach members and guests of the church @ MyrtleLake. She reaches out with the gospel; I reach in. She delights in her studies and her teaching. Me too!  No wonder we both feel young.

When Paul was teaching about the desire of many to be comfortable with the traditions of the Law, he made it clear that the mother of slavery was their Jerusalem, “but the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.” [Galatians 4:25]  Were it not for the mother above, the new Jerusalem, we would neither be free from the Law’s condemnation, nor have hope above.

Timothy would not have been Timothy were it not for Lois and Eunice, his grandmother and mother. Samuel would have been just another Hebrew were it not for his mother, Hannah.  David Thomas Porter would have been just another retired professor were it not for Florence June Leslie.

“She is worth far more than rubies…”