The past too many hours have been a roller coaster of emotions.  After Bible Study last night I got one of those calls that makes the earth move out from under your feet and sucks the breath out of your lungs.  I stood trying to know my name...my Mom was in the hospital.  Now, before you loving join me in the abyss....she's fine!  They sent her home and there's nothing wrong.   But that phone call and the hours of waiting were incredibly revealing for Lent.

First....my sister is amazing in a crisis...She talked to the nurse and got information.  I am the emotional one and didn't think to do that.  Second...I am good at waiting.  I can sit for hours and stare into space without it seeming painful, endless or suffocating.  In the midst of the waiting I found other things.

When I was about 6 years old my Mom took me into the kitchen one Sunday morning yelling about how I hadn't cleaned behind my ears and then she preceded as she lectured me to wash my hair and behind my ears.  I always loved my Mom washing my hair in the kitchen.  She had these great finger nails and she would scratch and massage the soap into my hair and it felt so good.  I had a stuffed dog when I was a little little one and I carried it by the neck to the point it would wear out and spring a leak for the stuffing to fall out.  I remember being about 3ish and asking Mom to sew the hole.  The memories flowed today from strange places...but all of them places of love with my Mom. 

Mom is the rock in our family.  We all count on her just to be the rock.  We've probably never said it...it didn't need said...we all knew it and we never questioned the truth of it.  Mom is Mom...it's that simple.  She was the rock when I was little and she's the rock now.

I'm the one who has flitted around in life.  I gave her hell as a teenager...ask her, she'll be glad to tell you and remind me.  We remember the reasons differently, but it's behind us.  I was the always the challenge for her.  Ask her about when I was little and there are some really good stories.  And even now I'm the one who can frustrate her faster than anything.  Partly, I'm more like her than she wants to realize and I'm way more like her mother than either of us realize, which really is crazy.  But I look at my daughters and I see my Mom again.  So somehow it all moves in the right direction....forward in love.

I believe life is truly about relationships...my definition of sin from the other day fitting nicely in this revelation....it's about being right with God and others.  We fill it with other stuff....until the phone rings and the earth moves and we are blessedly reminded again of the love of one person....and the love of the many who help us through the hours of waiting because I know I wasn't alone.  Life is relationships....