Mother’s Day is May 14, this coming weekend. This article is in homage to my wonderful mother who faithfully reads Simple Christianity.
When I was a kid, things didn’t always go my way. I’m sure that was true for most of you, too. When that happened, my mom had an annoying question to help me through the rough patches. You’ll benefit from it as well.
As a kid, I excelled at math. I basically got myself one year ahead of the normal math sequence and ended up taking high-school calculus my junior year. When my senior year rolled around, my parents didn’t want me goofing off and wasting a year without taking any math, and so I enrolled in a calculus class at my local junior college. The junior college happened to be next door to my high school, so it was really convenient. I was able to make the college class match up with one of my high school periods and it was simple to walk over to the college for calculus and walk back afterwards.
When the first day of class rolled around, it felt pretty cool. There I was in my first legitimate college class. The professor handed out a summary sheet that let us know which book we would be using, when homework was due, and when our exams and finals would be.
This whole idea of buying a book for a class was new to me. In high school, we were always provided with the books used in class, and we returned them at the end of the semester. But not in college. In college, you buy or rent your books.
So, after school that day I headed out to the junior college bookstore to buy the calculus book. I started to look through the shelves and found the math section. I found where the book should have been. Ugh! It hit me like a wave and sucked me under. To my horror… there were no copies. None. Zip. Nada. Just a blank shelf with the name of the book on a little tag, along with the price.
I panicked.
All the other students must have gone to the bookstore right after class and bought the book. And they had purchased all the copies! Ugh!
How would I be able to take this class without a book?
I had my first piece of homework due in a couple days! How would I do my homework?
I was going to fail! It was only day one of class, and already I was going to fail!
Looking back on it now, I have to laugh at myself. I can’t imagine getting worked up about it in the slightest. But back then, with almost zero life experience, it was a Big Deal! A Very Big Deal, indeed.
I came home and told my mom about the blank shelf and proposed my theory that all the other students had probably bought all the books before I got there.
“What do I do?” I asked. “I’m going to fail this class if I can’t find the book.”
I don’t know how my mom kept a straight face, watching me adulting for the first time and failing badly.
Interestingly, her first response to me was not practical but spiritual.
She could have told me that I could order a copy through the bookstore and to talk to the professor and that he could easily Xerox a couple of chapters of the book if it took a while to come in.
Instead, she asked me, “Have you thanked God yet?”
“What?”
“Have you thanked God yet?”
“Thanked God?” I said, incredulously. “For… for what? No. This is a problem, not a solution.”
“Why don’t you start by thanking God?”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now. Let’s pray and you can thank God.”
“Um… okay,” I said. I held her hands and closed my eyes. Then, I threw up a prayer. “God, thanks for getting me into this college calculus class. But I’m going to need one of those books to pass this class, so if you could help me with that, I’d be really thankful, which Mom is telling me I should already be. So, thanks for there not being any books in the bookstore. Amen.”
Not my best work, to be sure. But straight to the point and 100 percent honest.
“See, that wasn’t hard,” she said. “Do you feel any better?”
“Not really,” I replied.
“Well, why don’t you go back to the bookstore tomorrow and see if they have any books.”
“Mom, all the other students bought all the books. I’m screwed.”
“Just go back to the bookstore tomorrow and see.”
“Okay, fine.”
I went to bed that night unconvinced.
The following day, I went to the bookstore and looked at the same shelf I had previously.
But this day, there was a book! Just one. My book. Placed there directly by the hand of God himself, I was sure.
It was my little miracle.
I snatched it up. The previous day, a wave of panic had washed over me. Now, it was a wave of relief.
“Thanks, God,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
Lesson learned: whatever your situation in life, thank God. Especially when things don’t go your way, thank God. Thank him for being in control. Thank him for putting you in this horrible situation so that he can display his glory in your life. Thank him for growing your faith as you learn to trust him. Thank him for the rising sun and breath in your lungs. Thank him for the big and the small and for everything in between. Thank him for things he has done and things that have yet to be.
To be honest, I didn’t really learn the lesson immediately. Mom used to remind me to thank God all the time. I would sigh and roll my eyes, then grudgingly say another simple prayer. And God would come through. Sometimes he came through quickly. Sometimes not. Sometimes he came through in a way that I asked for and sometimes in a way that I didn’t expect. Sometimes he came through in a big way and sometimes just something small.
But looking back, Mom’s lesson made a big impact on me and I’ve never forgotten it.
So, Mom, thanks for a lifetime of life lessons. They have made all the difference over the years. I’m sorry that I didn’t listen the first time and I apologize for rolling my eyes. You were right. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day.
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Thanking God is such a hard thing for humans to do. The usual response is "why would I thank God for such a crappy world." But we conveniently forget that the world is crappy through our God-given free will actions. I've learned to thank God for allowing me to be born, live this life, and have the opportunity to obtain Heaven for eternity. That is the most thankful thing for all us. God wants us to live in Heaven with Him for eternity, we should be thankful that we even have that opportunity.
Yes. Happy Mother's Day to all moms! And thank you God, for the miracle of creation.