Where I May Have Acquired My Hope Genes

Mom with her original five.

So this week we celebrated Mom’s 85^th birthday at a local restaurant with my siblings and Mom’s little brother who always seemed like more of a brother to us. It was a good time, with my brother making my sister laugh so hard she could barely breathe at one point.

As we celebrated Mom, we played a trivia game with questions based on the autobiography she published ten years ago. Even she didn’t get all the answers correct, but she did win the prize in the end.

One of my favorite stories from Mom’s life and book happened in 1950. Shortly after she and Dad moved into their first “real” home (a converted granary they had fixed up!), they were so proud to be able to order from the Simpsons catalog a complete living room suite—sofa, chair, coffee table, and two end tables. It even came with two lamps.

The trivia question surrounding this story was: What made this purchase so ironic?

The answer:  Their home didn’t have electricity!

Mom proudly placed the lamps on the end tables where they served as decorative ornaments for a year until the power company rolled through their district, stringing the wires that would make everyone’s world a little brighter. At the party, we teased Mom about whether she put bulbs in them and if so, did they burn out during the year? I suppose the house must have been wired for electricity when they built it, anticipating the day.

The reason I love this story so much is because it speaks of two things: contentment and hope.

The Bible says “We are saved by trusting. And trusting means looking forward to getting something we don’t yet have—for a man who already has something doesn’t need to hope and trust that he will get it.

 
But if we must keep trusting God for something that hasn’t happened yet, it teaches us to wait patiently and confidently.” (Romans 8:24 TLB)

Faith is about buying electric lamps before you can connect them to power, confident it will come. Faith is about waiting patiently for the fulfillment of our dreams here on earth, trusting that God is working out the details in his timing. 

Most of all, faith is knowing there is a “fully-charged” home awaiting us when our time here is done. So we can live out our 85 or 95 or 105-year allotment here, in the midst of life’s loneliness and disappointments, with peace and joy and patience and love. I’m grateful to have a mother who’s still here with us, exemplifying that very kind of faith every day.

Yay! A coloring book!