Category Archives: Being a Daughter

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Happy Mother’s Day

I was talking to our daughter Hannah today – wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day – expressing to her how thankful I am for the mothers she and her sisters are. I sent them these flowers, well this picture of the flowers. 🙂

Hannah thanked me for being her mother, which has been a blessing since the day her smile graced this world. I told her I had a wonderful mother who also had a wonderful mother!

Truth be told, I am not sure about the mothers beyond that. My mother’s mother left Sweden in 1920 – by herself – at 16 to immigrate to the United States. Great Grandma Anderson did something I can’t imagine allowing my daughter do at 16 years old – leave on a ship traversing the ocean not knowing if I would ever see her again!

The mothers in my families’ past (as far as family stories go) share one foundational characteristic – faith in God. I have a picture of my Grandmother Barker as a small child on her Grandmother Brant’s lap. It was taken in 1898 and there are white tents in the background. The family is at a church Camp Meeting in rural Illinois. I have Grandma Barker’s Bible and it is well marked and her notes line the margins.

So, I am the blessed recipient of generations of mothers who have lived with faith in God. They certainly weren’t perfect, nor did they have lives void of pain and suffering. Yet by the grace of God they passed on that faith to following generations including me.

The sermon today included the following passage of scripture about Mary, Jesus’ mother. After the angel comes to Mary to announce that she will give birth to the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Luke 1:39-45 says

39 A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town 40 where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. 41 At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

42 Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. 43 Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? 44 When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. 45 You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”

The last verse – 45 – jumped out at me. Why was Mary blessed? “You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”

Mary wasn’t blessed because she was perfect, more intelligent, better looking, or stronger than others. She was blessed because she had faith that God would do what he said. God told her she would give birth to the Son of God, the promised messiah who would fulfill the covenant made to Abraham. God was faithful to his promise.

I will be blessed and my children and grandchildren will be blessed from generation to generation when I have faith and believe that God will do what he said. That is the greatest legacy I can leave as a mother.

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A Legacy Lives On

It has been a year since my Mother passed on to her eternal reward. As others who have experienced this loss, you know how you miss your mother every day. So many thoughts pass through my mind, and an instant response is “oh, I need to tell Mother”. I see something and I think, “oh, Mother would like that.”

Yet I am so thankful for all the wonderful memories I have and treasure. Esther Barker lived 90 blessed years!

Mother loved Bible study. While visiting our daughter Hannah recently, I started working on my study of Hebrews while I was waiting for the rest of the children to wake up. Our granddaughter, Adella, asked me what I was doing and when I told her, she went and got her Bible and said she would help me. She certainly did! After looking up a passage and reading the question, Adella came up with very good answers.

I noticed Adella had highlighted verses and I asked her about that.

“Mom said I couldn’t underline in my Bible any more so she gave me a highlighter to use instead.”

After seeing where Adella had underlined, I understood my daughter’s concern. (she had drawn lines right through the words instead of UNDER the words) Adella showed me her favorite verse in Psalms and I showed her my favorite verse, Romans 12:2.

I had forgotten my Bible in the car, so I found Hannah’s old Bible. She had used this Bible while in college and she had written many notes and underlined verses special to her.

So, the legacy Mother left of Bible study and loving God’s Word is living on in myself, our three daughters (who all attend Bible studies) and on to the next generation as well.

Psalm 119 states –

73 You made me; you created me.
    Now give me the sense to follow your commands.
74 May all who fear you find in me a cause for joy,
    for I have put my hope in your word.

103 How sweet your words taste to me;
    they are sweeter than honey.
104 Your commandments give me understanding;
    no wonder I hate every false way of life.

105 Your word is a lamp to guide my feet
    and a light for my path.

We are blessed!

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Letter from My Father

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I am going through old papers. You know, that box in the back of the closet with papers I have saved for years, but never look at?

Well, I am so thankful I did not give in to my first impulse and throw it all away. I have thrown away some, (why in the world did I save it in the first place?) but I found a treasure, something that really touched my heart.

A letter from my father.

Carol Strobeck and I were in Hawaii for Christmas break of our junior year of college. We had the wonderful opportunity to visit the family of a college friend, Pam Grindle, whose parents lived in Hawaii during the winter months. (their home was in Alaska)

My father wrote to me and it is such a snapshot of his personality – warm, funny, personal, and thoughtful. My father had spent time in Hawaii during WW II while training on his way to the Pacific theater. He eventually served on Guam, Okinawa, and other small islands in his role as a weather man for the Air Corps of the Army. He had such wonderful memories of Hawaii and he was so pleased that I had the opportunity to go there.

As I recall, my father only wrote to me twice, so I am thankful I saved this letter from 1972. (I was 20, 47 years ago!)

Here is part of what my father wrote –

“I wonder if you felt like I did in the islands. I think I can describe. When I first experienced the beauty and the general atmosphere of the place I felt a gentleness and softness of the atmosphere that seemed very delicate and wonderful. I often think that the feeling of enjoyment I sensed when I first took in the beauty of the islands was just a slight introduction and foretaste of what God has been preparing for you and me and all of us in the form of Heaven for our eternal reward.”

It is not surprising to me or anyone who knew my father that the natural beauty of Hawaii stirred his heart. He devoted his life and career to studying and teaching the wonder of God’s creation.

My father lived with eternity on his mind. He went on to his eternal reward in 2016 at 91 years of age. Now he has more than the “foretaste” of Heaven, he is experiencing the reality.

9 But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”— I Corinthians 2:9

 

The greatest gifts my father gave me, besides his unconditional love, was his love for God and his contagious love of nature. I caught both extravagantly.

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