Epitaphs and Significance

"I'm not worth much," Mother said, as she laid her head back on her pillow.
Mother hated to be a bother to anyone.
 She'd much rather take care of someone else than be taken care of herself.

Our Mom's and More group was studying a book entitled, "Grace-Based Parenting."
It said that our children's three driving inner needs are a need for security, significance, and strength.
To meet these needs, we give them love, purpose, and hope.

All of us have the same needs.

I wonder.
When it's our turn to be too weak to do anything
and we need help with everything,
how will we find security, significance, and strength?

Who will give us love, purpose, and hope?

My mother was very sick during the time I was reading the chapter referred to above.
That's when she said, "I'm not worth much."

I haven't figured this out yet.
But I think that we are strengthened when we think others like us.
And we tend to think that our significance comes from what we do.
And we are probably most secure when we know that our future has hope.

But what if that's all gone?

What if no one cares about all the great things we've done and who we used to be?
What if we can't do anything or produce anything?
What if we have only a little strength and there is no hope of getting it back?

What then?
Do we not have love, hope, or purpose
because we do not have security, significance, or strength?

I saw it plain as day, after my mother said those despairing words.

Her security is this:
Jesus loves her.

Her significance is this:
Jesus loves her.

Her strength is this:
Jesus loves her.

Jesus loving her
IS her love,
her hope,
her purpose.

To just lay there and be loved is enough.

Jesus loves us,
not because of our significance,
but because He is love.
Even if I had never come to Him,
He would love me,
just because I am.

I looked at my mother.
I thought about how much she had done.
What a great mother she was.
What a wonderful friend.
Artist, poet, retreat maker, first female board member of our high school,
 first woman elder at our church, teacher, etc. etc.
All these things she had done.

But her significance, her security, her strength
had nothing to do with these things.

Perhaps that is why Jesus said that we must become like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Before we do too much and receive too much acclaim.
 Before we think we are loved in proportion to our productivity.

And at the end of life,
we enter the kingdom of heaven best
as a child again.
Forgetting the significance of our past deeds
and trusting only in His love for us.

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I wrote most of this a few months ago,
before Mother fell asleep in one room
and woke up in another.

I am so grateful
that she now knows her Significance, her Strength, her Security.
She walks with Him every minute of every blessed breathing day.
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Philippians 3:8~"Yet indeed I also count all things (my significance, my strength, my security) loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ..."
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I was asked one time, what I would like my epitaph to say. I think I said something like, "Loving wife, mother, friend..." But I think it would be better to have it say, "Jesus loved her, this she knew."