Listen to this week’s blog:
My mom was a rare bird. She had unusual ways of doing things. When I was little, she tried many crazy folk treatments to remedy warts I had on my fingers, before ever consulting a doctor. As a widow, when she couldn’t afford to get her dryer door fixed, she used it as an opportunity to read a book with her feet pushing on the door for the full cycle. When she worked in the business office of an orchard, she fined anyone 25¢ for swearing, including her boss. Curiously, she was never one to give directions or teach us the specifics of how to do something. But through her actions she taught me many beautiful lessons about trusting God.
This story begins with my grandparents who owned a triple-decker house near Boston. They rented out the first floor and sometimes the third floor. Shortly before the Depression, they somehow managed to buy an old farm in New Hampshire on a coal truck driver’s pay and the rental income. They had a son with muscular dystrophy and were happy to get him out to the country in the summers, as well as having a break from helping him up the many stairs. Sadly, he only lived to age twenty-three.
When I was born, my parents bought the land adjacent to the farm. Around that time, my grandparents retired permanently to the farmhouse, and my mom’s younger brother married and lived in the city house. My mom loved living in the country. Our home was a simple trailer, as the plan was always that one day she would inherit the farmhouse and her younger brother would get the city house.
My grandpa passed away, leaving my grandmother to rely more on her children. One day we returned home from church, stunned to see a for sale sign on my grandmother’s property. My mom discovered that my grandmother had been manipulated into selling her other house to her son for what seemed far below market value and then to put the farm up for sale. My poor grandmother, in her 80s, seemed confused. She could not be convinced to take the farm off the market.
The farmhouse was sold. For many months, the pain my mom felt poured out of her as she recounted her brother’s underhanded actions. For my mom it was a betrayal and a loss of her birthright.
As I look back, there came a point when my mom stopped talking about the loss of the farmhouse, NEVER to mention it again. For one with a long memory, she clearly forgave all. I remember her telling her brother that she loved him. I wish I had thought to ask her how she was able to forgive.
I’ve considered the reasons that helped my mom forgive him. Above all else, my mom saw her mother come to experience faith in Jesus not long before she died. My grandmother had never known her own father. Her recognition that she had a heavenly father was the ultimate grace note of her story. Secondly, my mother had already lost a brother so maybe she understood that a relationship with her remaining brother was more important than any inheritance. Through all her challenges, my mom lived each day confident in God’s protection and provision. An amazing added blessing she experienced was that one family that eventually lived at the farm came to faith through my mom's witness.
I can only conclude that it was God’s grace and the fruit of her faithful obedience to Him that allowed her to forgive and heal from the loss and hurt from her brother. Even though my mom’s hopes were crushed, she relinquished that dream knowing she was in God’s loving care. The best example of forgiveness for me is that of Jesus on the cross when He prayed, “Father, forgive them.” I can pray that prayer anytime I struggle with forgiving someone else, never forgetting God’s constant forgiveness to me.
A year after my mom died, her church held a fall banquet. On each table there were pumpkins with a card that said the pumpkins were given in loving memory of my mom. I don’t know who provided those. But I have made it a tradition this time of year to put pumpkins on my table as a way of honoring my mom’s example of faithfulness and forgiveness. They are like a cairn, the memorial stones of the Old Testament, that served as markers of God's covenant faithfulness. My memorial reminds me to hold things less tightly and to nurture relationships more. My mom would approve.
ABOUT OUR BLOGGER
Linnea Tideman has always enjoyed sharing stories. Her childhood in New Hampshire and her Swedish heritage have provided her with a wealth of experiences, but also the foundation of her faith. She enjoys creative projects, travel, books, sewing, gardening, but most of all hospitality, often hosting fancy teas and occasionally something grand like recreating dinner on the Titanic. She serves the UrbanPromise and Good Neighbors ministries. Linnea lives in Landenberg with her husband Dave. They have three grown daughters. She hopes that her writing reflects how God continues to reveal Himself to us as our shepherd and Savior.