My mom

Being a senior, I'm in the throes of college applications and scholarship applications (fun, fun! :-)) Why am I telling you this in a post entitled "my mom"? Because one of the essays I wrote for a scholarship application was about her, and I thought I'd share it...

     There wasn’t any paper. How can we teach a class without paper? I asked myself, then asked Mom. She pointed out that we did have a blackboard - of sorts – just boards painted black. The young Nigerian orphans crowded around us, eager to learn. Dividing the class based on the needs of each student, she and I taught English and arithmetic. On the way back to the guesthouse where we stayed, we discussed our day and shared our thoughts, as we always did. I told her I was amazed by how much the students were able to do with so little. I never even thought about throwing away a slightly smudged piece of paper. Yet they would have been happy to receive the same! And how I had dreaded long division and grammar, subjects we explained that day! Yet they were continually enthusiastic. While we were in Africa, just as when we are at home, my mom has found creative ways to teach me unforgettable lessons and to give me a love for learning so that I may teach myself.

     Some of my earliest and most pleasurable memories involve Mom reading books out loud to me – some she read so many times that she can still recite them! As I grew older, we would read together with the rest of our family as we snuggled on the couch or ate dinner. And then – joyous time! – she taught me to read! By the time I could puzzle words out on my own, I had an expansive appetite for books, thanks to her patience and intentionality.
     Not only did Mom teach me to read, she also showed me how to learn from the lives of the characters I read about. Having watched her pull application points from our books many times, I have become able to do so on my own, yet my mother’s influence on the process remains strong. For example, I will never forget my lesson from the life of Mary Slessor, missionary to Africa in the nineteenth century. At one point in her life, Mary was stuck in a place where she did not want to be, nor did she believe that God had ultimately called her there. Moreover, she was doing a job that she didn’t want to do. Yet she smiled as she worked. What a great woman of faith! I remember thinking. Her cheerfulness despite adversity is a testament to me. Yet although I was inspired by Mary, reading about her did not cause me to try to follow her example. Instead, it was my mom’s similar trust in God that made Mary’s example meaningful to me. I have watched Mom persevere through many difficulties – her mom’s slow decline, her friend’s son’s cancer, and her own at times debilitating back pain, among others – yet her joy has only grown.
     Although Mom uses circumstances of life as they happen as opportunities for her lessons, they influence me all the more because she models the very attributes she attempts to teach. If she did not visibly enjoy books and learning, her efforts to convince me of their worth would have seemed trite. Without her example of integrity, I would not feel able to even begin to try to emulate some of the people I have read about. Undoubtedly, much of who I am today I owe to the love, character and intentionality of my excellent mother.