Who's in the Mirror?

Combing my hair to come to church on Sunday morning, I kept getting glimpses of my mother in the mirror.  When I stopped to look closely, she was gone.  This has happened before---and more and more often these days. I look more like my dad than my mom, but once in a while, I see her in my mirror.  Maybe it has something to do with the brown eyes I got from her –or this time it could have been the red bead necklace I was wearing that used to be hers. 

My mother was a lovely person and one of the most unselfish people I have known.  Certainly she wasn’t perfect, but I have memories of her making a hundred little sacrifices every day--staying up late to get things ready for an early breakfast when we came home for Christmas with our children. Sleeping on the couch, insisting that she found it very comfortable.  When I was a little girl, we were always giving someone a ride to church, staying late to help clean up after church dinners.  It was just what she did. 

So I have to confess that I was at first a little put off by the Rejuvenate announcement that was said to be “all for us.”  Aren’t we supposed to be doing things for others?  But then I realized that this little mini-conference is an opportunity to connect with other women and meet their needs, to be of service.  The mission trip to the Dominican will be a great opportunity for those who can go.  I’m glad to hear that there’s a good group taking part. The rest of us need to find ways to be an encouragement and blessing close to home.

Pastor Euler gave us an interesting quotation from Francis Bacon: “A poor center of a man’s life is himself.”  It’s true for women as well.  John Donne, another notable English writer and preacher who lived at about the same time as Bacon, is the one who wrote Meditation 17 that contains the well-known lines, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” These men were onto something. If they could connect and care for one another in the seventeenth century, we have no excuse in the digital age. We need to look outside of ourselves and remember the words of Jesus: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

I imagine I will keep getting glimpses of Mom.  It will remind me to emulate her, and possibly to leave a legacy for my own daughters to live up to.

--Sherry Poff