January 22, 2021
A large cup of coffee, open Bibles, notes, and a prayer journal covered most of our kitchen table every morning while I was growing up. Faithfully each morning…and I mean like 5:30 in the morning…my mother took her seat at the table. There she sought His face, studied His Word, and said prayers that she is still hearing answers to today.
As a single parent, she washed the clothes, cooked the meals, signed the homework pads, paid the bills, fixed the boo-boos, and gassed the car. She did it all.
She was a full-time social worker. She dressed in matching skirts and blazers with the same colored high heels. Think late 80s magenta and yellow. Most mornings our commute involved her removing the hot rollers from her jet black hair. Surely the heat from those rollers and her age led her to turn on the air conditioner in the car even on winter mornings. And finally as a forty-something year old woman, I can understand this phenomenon.
Mom somehow found a way to send my brother and I to a Christian school from kindergarten until we finished. Raising us was one of her biggest jobs, but certainly not her only one. She went on to be a social worker in various capacities for 50 years. She has given time, money, and prayer to more people than I’ll ever know. And she has given more sugar to her grandkids than we’ll ever calculate. Her Grammy game is strong.
She is a worker. She is a giver.
I didn’t don a pearl necklace or wear Converse shoes this week. I basically stuck with my self-mandated uniform of black leggings and sweatshirts. I only traded in my well-worn slippers for sneakers when having to leave the house. I didn’t feel the need. It’s not that my eyes are blind to the fact that a woman was sworn in as Vice President. It’s that my eyes haven’t been looking for a role model. My heart wasn’t searching for a void to fill.
I have never felt less-than or devalued because those who hold high offices don’t share my femininity. Rather, I was raised to find my identity and worth in my Maker. He appoints some as queens and some as teachers. The beauty is that our worth isn’t defined by either.
Some of the strongest and bravest women I know won’t ever grace the cover of a magazine or take an oath for an office. But few have the tenacity of my great grandmother who raised nine kids, became a widow fairly early in life, and went on to live to 103 years of age. She was a feisty woman who I should credit with some of my sassy mouth.
And I can guarantee you that no one else holds the power over a batch of fried chicken like my grandma. Or encourages like my childhood piano teacher. Or roots for me like my high school basketball coach. Or teaches like my Bible study leader.
No one can take the place of my best friend who dreams, laughs, and cries with me. Or the sweet older ladies who mark the path with their soft, lotioned hands and gentle words.
These are the women who have humbly and graciously walked a well-worn path for me. They are the ones I will strive to emulate, maybe not in fashion or profession, but in acts of faith and love.
Wear the necklace. Put on the shoes if you’d like. But I also challenge you, look around. Put your arms around the necks of the ones who have gone before. Place your feet in their footsteps. There is so much that we can embrace and learn from them. They have mothered us, befriended us, led us, and served us. They have answered the call. Maybe not to a high office. But a high calling, oh yes. The ones who have gone before us, walk beside us, and those who will come after us, they are our leaders.
“Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her
praise at the city gate.” Proverbs 31:31