Just Like My Mother

Her simple morning habit has shaped me

Photo by DAWN HIGHAM on Unsplash

There are times when the realization startles me: I am just like my mother.

It’s in small things — the way I mindlessly pick at my skin during church, in the car, while I am looking at our budget. In the way I sigh when my family abandons the dinner table with all the scraps still in their places. In the way I preen in the passenger seat on long trips with a book and a salty snack. In the way I take my coffee black first thing in the morning.

It’s here, with my mug in one hand and my Bible in the other, that I am most pleased with this slow becoming. I pull my legs up and cover with a wooly throw my son discarded after a bed-time Dude Perfect binge. I sip my bitter brew and welcome the small hours with prayer and praise before children find me to dump their needs in my lap. I scribble in the pages of a devotional journal and keep my new Bible’s thin and crispy pages pristine — for now.

When I was young and my body begged for more sleep, my mom would rouse me to get up for school and let our family’s golden retriever do the rest. She returned to the couch where faithfulness was displayed but seldom noticed. She has always resided there in my memory where I view her habit with the gratitude and awe of a woman who needs the word more than ever.

When I am here in her time zone studying Scripture, I know she is in her place doing the same. And that moves me.

It moves me to plant my feet on chilly floors and brace for a day of unknowns. It moves me to sift through Scriptures with an open heart and an inky pen recording the promises, comforts, and joys I find there— to become more like my mother who is becoming more like Jesus every day.

When I return to my host-country and the timeline is flipped ahead, I will smile when I remember how she is covering me with morning prayers even as I lean over my children, nestled on pillows whispering sweet everythings to the Lord.

When the sun comes up in Asia, I will laugh at the coffee ring on those once-white pages and say, I am just like my mother.

Praise God.