“Each of you must honor your mother and father and keep my days of sabbath rest. I am the Lord your God!” – Leviticus 19:3

I have been thinking about this post for a few days now…. weeks, really. Then, as if to confirm my thinking, this photograph popped up on one of the “memory” pages, either from Facebook or Google.

Today would have been my mother’s 93rd birthday; instead, it is the first anniversary of the day she shrugged off the constraints of her failing body and, as she would have said, “Went on the Glory.”

What’s interesting (a better word may be “poignant”) is that – even though my dad died November 14 the previous year – September 15 is now, for me, the day that represents both of their lives. And also this transition in my life, this move from being someone whose first and most pressing duty was that of caring for my parents into this whole new self that is emerging from the all-encompassing task that defined me for the better part of seven years.

I now have enough distance, almost but not quite, to comment with more clarity. And yet, in thinking about this time last year, and in looking at photographs like this, the feelings of overwhelm and vulnerability and of yearning for just one more meaningful conversation are still so very close to the surface.

Those last four or five years were such a difficult and fraught struggle, taking care of mum and dad 24-7, cooking and cleaning, organizing all the doctor visits and care schedules, maintaining their home and realizing (probably a good year too late) that I needed to be making all the decisions and then trying to catch up what had been neglected, often at great cost.

This new season:

I only mention this because it is still so close and I am still more tender than I had realized… And also because, now, I am so very grateful for this new season of my life..

In a sense, then, this day, this September 15th anniversary of the moment I no longer had living parents, is a kind of birth or beginning day for me too. It marks the advent of a new life and a reinvention after almost a decade of being, essentially, on hold.

Honor:

At the same time I want to use this day to honor mum and dad’s memory. Grace and David Maul lived with such remarkable goodness and generosity that they must be remembered and celebrated as people who understood the message and the way of Jesus with unusual clarity.

If you want to know what their gift was, in just a few short words, it would be: “They lived with humility and generosity and a commitment to encourage others.”

So I want to finish today’s post with this: Genuine followers of Jesus encourage one another, they lift other people up, they have a servant’s heart, they are gracious and kind and they make others feel welcome and valued.

There is more, of course, but this is what is on my heart today. If you knew Grace and David Maul then you knew something real about the authentic and invitational love of Jesus.

Their time may be past, in terms of their presence here on earth as ambassadors of the Kingdom; but “The Grace & David Story” lives on, and if you are someone who was blessed enough to have been in their widespread circle then you know how God wants you to live. All I can say is this: “Please honor my parents by following Jesus.”

In love, and because love gives us the power – DEREK

Genuine followers of Jesus encourage one another, they lift other people up, they have a servant’s heart, they are gracious and kind and they make others feel welcome and valued.