Spiritual Autobiography

My father's father was Catholic.  My grandmother was a protestant.  When grandmother would get the kids in Sunday school, a priest would come by and convince my grandfather to pull them out.  Couldn't have the kids going to a protestant Sunday school.

Then my dad went off to save the world in World War II, got shot out of the sky, captured, and spent some time in a German POW camp.  There was a Presbyterian minister in that prison, and although he never talked about it much, I think that was when my dad became a Christian.  I tell you this story so that I can contrast my childhood with the childhood of my parents.

We grew up in a household that was religiously unified.  My mom converted from Catholicism so that we could all go to church together.  Some of my earliest memories of from vacation Bible School and Sunday School.

My mom married a good man.  That probably wasn't as easy as it sounds.  Her mother married a guy, had a baby with him, and then the guy vanished.  Took a powder.  No one ever knew what became of him.  So what does she do next?  She marries my grandfather, the drunk.  So what does her oldest daughter, my aunt, who I never met do?  With these awful examples of men in her life?  She marries a guy who ends up in prison.

For some reason, if you try and marry the exact opposite of mom or dad, you frequently end up married to some sort of a clone of that person.  I don't know why this is so, but it is.  But somehow, my mom escaped that trap.  She married my dad.

So this was my childhood:  I had a better life than either of my parents did when they were growing up.  Really, you can't ask for more than that.  As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure if you can ask for that much.  What a remarkable thing they did.  They gave us more than they ever received.  My mom came out of that toxic family and made a better life for her children.

I can't find the words to tell you how proud I am of her.

Did we have some "issues?"  Yes.  All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  We will all have some issues.  Look at my kids.  They grew up thinking their father was a cannibal (that was a joke, honest!).  I wish my mom and I could have resolved our issues before she died, but it was not to be.

But then I got a glimpse of her in heaven.  Not a real, literal glimpse, but one day as I was praying, I got this sense from God of who she had become, of the person that I would be reunited with some day.  And you know what, she has leapfrogged past me again.  When we just started our relationship, she was the all powerful, all knowing mother and I was a little blood of protoplasm pooping in my diapers.  The years went by and I caught up to her.  I became an adult.  But before that happened, she was the one who took care of me and taught me everything.  She was my mom.

And then I sort of got the feeling that I had passed her up somewhere along the way.  I felt like I was more mature than she was, more whole than she was.  But I always knew that if this was so, it was only because she had given me a better childhood than the one she got from her parents.

And then she was gone.  And as I was praying I got this sense of my mom.  All of the pain that used to be inside of her is gone.  She is a being of pure light and deep wisdom.  Every broken place inside of her is healed and she has become perfect in the presence of God.  She had leapfrogged over me again.  When I arrive at the place where she now lives I will have so much to learn, so much to understand.  And there will be my mom, ready to teach me again.  And I don't think we'll even have to say a word about the "issues."  I think we will just hug and we will both understand.

This world is full of pain and suffering because this world is full of sin.  Sin pains and scars us all.  Sin warps our development as human beings made in the image of God.  But in the end, all things will be made right and all of God's children will be made perfectly whole.  I am so looking forward to that.