My mama wore her little hoe down to a nub. She worked that garden every chance she got right up until the year before she died.
I guess she came by that work ethic honestly. She grew up on a farm, picking cotton at the ripe old age of five. Everyone worked. The heat of summer, the hard work, the mosquitoes, the poverty…all of it was a part of her history.
She wanted more for herself. She watched her daddy lose their farm during the depression because he gave away the last of the family’s money to feed the poor folk on their farm. Mama decided then and there that she would have to be the one to take care of herself. She decided she would get an education.
When I decided I wanted to become a nurse, my mother said, “Don’t do that! Become a radiologist. Nurses have to work too hard to make a living.” I guess she would know. She had gotten that education by the sweat of her brow and became a nurse when nurses were educated by staffing hospitals. She told me that as a student nurse she often had the care of a ward of thirty or more patients by herself.
I distinctly remember her telling me over the years that she had hoped for so much more for me.
I felt I was a disappointment to her. Because I did not become ‘more’.
But…
I pretty much have always done exactly what I have wanted to do. I may put on that I bend and go with the flow to do what others want me to do…Pretty agreeable…but passive aggressively getting my own way or doing the ‘thing’ my way. That’s the truth.
I clearly have enjoyed working hard all my life. I feel restless when I am not working or sweating or helping someone else. The hours that I gave in nursing, ‘working too hard’, were food to my soul. And even now, the richest days are the days that I have spent toiling in the dirt, with my hoe, casting out weeds and creating beautiful spaces for plants.
So, yes Mama, I know YOU wanted more for your Bess, but your Bess got her MORE because she is doing everything she is meant to do…
Perhaps moms think that the things they want are the best things for their children.
Perhaps that the design on a life looks completely different than mama thinks it should.
I caught sight of this worn old hoe standing next to a new one that I bought for my mom. She had more, but she was content with the old hard working tool that she had used for many years.
I know she wanted more for me, but her more was not my more.
My more is serving my Savior by serving others. I am content to use the old pattern that my mom laid out. The pattern of giving a life to others, to feed the poor, to care for the wounded and sick, to stand by and hold the hands of the laboring; and to love unconditionally. And then to rejoice and to dance and to sing!!
That is MORE than enough…
“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet MORE and MORE…” Philippians 1:9