Gò0dNews for Mother’s Day
A Joyous Memory of Mother
H
by Chuck Cleveland
ad she lived, she would be celebrating being
so-good news is I informed God it was a bad idea and
108 years old in 2022, and this incident, I trust,
would do no good.
would have been the highlight of those years.
It certainly was for me. Both my parents had gone to church in their youth,
but there was no discernable evidence to suggest either
Miraculously, when Mother was brought to the phone, her mind was clear. After a short delay to gather myself, I presented the gospel as to how “we” could be forgiven. “You too?” she asked.
was born again. We went to church a few times during my teenage years, but nothing was ever said about how to be saved. Nevertheless, about a year after my father passed away, I became a Christian at the age of 24. My mother was not at all receptive to that news, and we drifted apart over the next 17 years. The situation went from bad to worse when Mother developed dementia, whereby she became unable to think logically. I despaired of her condition, thinking she would never be able to
Her question was the key to my belief that real
understand and respond to the gospel. My younger
spiritual business was transacted. She was clear-
brother moved Mother from Florida to California
headed enough to ask a logical question—why,
(where he lived) and placed her in a nursing home.
indeed, would someone who had already become a
I called many times in the next few months, but
Christian need to do so again?
she was always incoherent. One Sunday morning,
Mother prayed to receive Christ that afternoon,
I was reading in the first chapter of James when I
but it was the last time we spoke intelligibly before her
encountered, “Religion that God accepts as pure and
death. Fortunately, we can speak again in heaven.
their distress” (1:27). The message was clear to me— call my mother. The good news is I did so. The not-
8 // May 2022
About The Author
faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in Chuck Cleveland lives in Newnan, GA and has written for three area magazines, as well as the local newspaper. He has been a Christian for over 50 years.
