From Mom and Dad – A Gift of Grace
My earliest memory of a gift must have been my rubber dollie – Rosie. I can’t remember receiving the doll, but I remember clearly the day my brothers flipped Rosie into the air and her head came off. Finally my Dad re-attached the head, and Rosie came to me loved and whole.
The anticipation and excitement of unwrapping a gift is when my Dad bought Mom a clock. He confided in us, and told us not to tell his surprise of a mirror and a clock. We didn’t tell, but we hinted. “You will be able to see yourself.” We weren’t into secretive finesse at that age, but hugely enjoyed the secrets. When all is said and done, Dad wound the clock to see if it would work. It did.
Mother sat in the rocking chair by the Christmas Tree in the quiet of the evening, several nights before Christmas Eve, staring into the twinkling lights. Later she said she could hear the quiet, ‘tick-tock’ of her gift. She didn’t tell that she guessed. Our anticipation of her delight escalated while she opened the gift. She obliged with a surprised clasp of her hands, peering into the mirror, and listening closer to the tick-tock of the clock.
One other gift comes to my mind. We moved 50 miles to a different job for Dad. In making the move, money was very scarce. 1945. That Christmas, Mom took me aside and explained that they didn’t have money for gifts. On Christmas Eve, after the Christmas story and Christmas carols, I received one gift — hand made — mittens painstakingly knitted by Mom. Brown yarn with a bit of embroidery and filled with love. Even then Christmas was more than gifts to me.
When I remember Mom now, I remember her love that inevitably was defined by sacrifice of time and thought. Now when I remember Mom and Dad, I know their lives were filled with small sacrifices to take care of their family. I remember the product lines in the basement when we worked together to can bushels of grapes or peaches. The spring planting of the garden that would bring more food to can for winter use. Our shirts and dresses were made from the printed feed sacks (food for the chickens) that often had holes in them. Mom used her creativity to embroider a flower over the hole. To Mom and Dad, it wasn’t sacrifice, for them, sacrifice was spelled L-O-V-E.
They taught us through their lives, the example of love motivated sacrifice. Their every day gifts were the meals Mom prepared, always adding chocolate or butterscotch pie with mile high meringue for dessert. The little adventures of driving for a picnic with the destination undetermined until we found the perfect shade tree beside the road that pleased Mom. Even Saturday cleaning was an adventure…when Mom taught us to race through the cleaning and finish out the back door by noon.
The gift of their lives to us … is Grace. Grace that keeps on giving from one generation to next. They taught us about Jesus Christ. They taught us about His sacrifice of love for us, dying on the cross. This is the gift that lasts! This is the gift they lived!
John 3:16-17 – “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”
Ephesians 2:8 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—“