Her Greatest Treasure?

Mom had been bedbound for about two years when in the course of conversation I made mention of the dream Grandma had had about her before she was born.

Mom's eyebrows shot up. She was nothing if not expressive! "What????"

Somehow, although she had regaled me with the story so many times that I knew it backward and forward, Grandma had never gotten around to sharing this prophetic dream with her own daughter. I swatted away any dread that Grandma's omission might cause a bout of jealousy, another unfortunate tendency Mom had, and, eyes averted to make it seem a casual thing, striving for anything that might make the offense of it not having been shared with her seem trivial, I shared the dream.

In "Shoeless" I laid out the beginning of my mother's family's introduction into the saving grace of Jesus Christ. While it is true that it was Auntie Trinie's conversion and the dramatic change in her character that drew her family and sister (Grandma) to the Lord, God had already been preparing Grandma's heart for a stepping away from the Catholic church. I know that there are those who love the Lord and know Him within the confines of every denomination, but by and large the Catholic doctrine, especially in yesteryear, does not promote a working knowledge of a personal relationship with Jesus. They are taught that closeness comes through His representative to them, their priest. That's where Grandma found herself as a young bride, in the Catholic church. But even then, there was a longing for more in her spirit, a longing for a closer relationship with her Lord and Savior.

Then, one night, she had a dream. Now, we all know that not all dreams are from God. Some come from what we just lived or watched on tv, or are a result of indigestion. But there are some dreams that move us so much that we know that we know that we know that this dream means something. This was one of those dreams.

In the dream, Grandma could hear what sounded like a hammer on wood, pounding, pounding. The resonating sound drew her and as she neared the site of its origin she was astonished--it was not the hammering of nails being driven into wood, but the noise of nails being hammered out of wood. And those nails were the nails on the cross. As she watched, mesmerized, Jesus came off the cross and came to stand in front of her. She knelt, suffused with love for Him and joy to be in His presence. And she had the overwhelming urge to give Him something. But what could she give Him? She racked her brain--her ring! Her wedding ring! She began to tug at it to work it off her finger and lay it at His feet--but He stopped her.

"No," He told her gently. "In thirty Mondays I will give you a gift to give to Me."

Grandma woke up, knowing that she had had an encounter with God. She was not to learn the meaning of Jesus coming off the cross for a few more years--she later realized it was Him preparing her heart to understand that He is no longer on the cross, we need not kneel to a crucifix for He is a RISEN Savior--but she did begin counting the Mondays off on her calendar. It so happened that the day after the dream, her husband took her to see the doctor. She hadn't been feeling well and, young people that they were, they didn't know what it could be. It turned out that Grandma (surprise!) was in the family way. And exactly thirty Mondays later, little Matilde Katheryn made her grand appearance into this glorious world.

Grandma was so thrilled to give her precious firstborn symbolically to the Lord. She kept her, of course, and nurtured and loved her, but she knew that this baby was born for a special purpose.

She spent a lifetime looking for that purpose.

Now, Mom looked at me from her place in her bed and blinked like an astonished owl. "She never told me …"

I shrugged as if flummoxed--and didn't tell Mom the rest of the story. How Grandma would call me for prayer after either Mom had raged at her --again-- for being a missionary and "abandoning" her children (not true--wrong perception, long story), for being too strict with her while she was growing up, etc. etc. or because some horrible thing had happened due to Mom being "not herself"--our family's euphemism for tipsy or roaring drunk. And her venting would often end with a backward look at the incomprehensible meaning of God's first designation of my mother--a gift fit for the King.

That's why Grandma told me the dream over and over again. Mom's birth had been followed by that of her two brothers, men who grew to live productive lives (as in, not that of a drunkard), acquiring impressive heights of higher education despite the poverty of their youth, and were respected members of their community. Mom? Not so much. I had peers who wouldn't talk to me in high school because of some of her shenanigans. She got an LVN degree only at the prompting of her second husband, she held no lofty goals for education on her own. So when another something happened Mom-wise, Grandma would tell me the dream--again--and ask, "Neenita, why would God tell me that He would give me a gift to give to Him--and then your mother is this way? Why, Janinita?"

I thought it a valid question. My mom seemed (I hate to say) like the black sheep of the family. Here Grandma had two sons who not only loved God but were recognized as somebody in their community… why hadn't God said THEY were the treasures to give to Him? I didn't know what to tell her. To our finite minds it just didn't make sense. And although Grandma spent a lot of time in prayer, she loved, loved, loved to kneel before her precious Lord, He never explained it to her. In fact, she had to wait till she went to Heaven at 91 years young to get this conundrum resolved.

This part of Grandma's sharing with me I kept to myself. What would be the point in shaming my mother? It was better to let it go … but I did still wonder.

Which is why I asked Pastor Kelly about it one night when the Wednesday night Bible study lent itself to it. I can still see his precious face, the way he chuckled softly and shook his head. "Janine, we don't see the way God sees … "

And that was my epiphany. Sixty plus years of wondering why God said my MOTHER (not her brother who was a lawyer and a judge, not her baby brother who so excelled in coaching and mentoring that he was honored posthumously by the town in which he had last served), my MOTHER was the gift He was after! We saw a prodigal daughter in a pigsty. He saw past her years of drinking and saw … a woman with a heart so tender towards Him that every poem she wrote (yes, Mom was a poet, she wrote incessantly on paper, napkins, notepads, anything at hand) lauded HIM, a woman who, despite living in a way that she told me herself she knew did not please God, never failed to honor Him with her tithe. A woman who did not give all of herself to Him till she was bedbound and only had caretakers around her to talk to of Him. Because that is what she does. Her cognition is mostly gone, I cannot post a picture of her because her pre-lost-cognition self would be horrified for people at large to see her without make up, but she tells her caretakes, "Praise Him! Praise Him! God is good!" And when we pray with her she raises her hands and praises Him.

This is Mom. This is God's treasure. And I praise Him that through all the turmoils of her life, when others held her in disdain, He chose to see her as His finished product, a jewel to treasure.

"For we are His workmanship (masterpiece), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" Ephesians 2:10.

Note: I am not advocating to live a life of sin, that sin does not matter. I am merely exalting the grandeur of God , who judges not as man sees.