I have chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, Cary Grant & Doris Day are on the television and my kitchen window is opened just enough to allow a chorus of bird-song in. As I sip my afternoon coffee and wait for just the right time to take the cookies out, I think of my mom. I have to smile. If someone had told me 20 years ago that the woman in the kitchen baking cookies and watching black & white movies would be me instead of my mother, I would have laughed. I have always loved and respected my mother, and I have prayed many times that I too would possess so many of her charms and virtues. I just never thought I’d come even close to being like her (and still don’t!). She was always the perfect mom.
Chocolate chip cookies were often baking in the oven when my brother, John, and I got home from school. Mom would wipe her hands on the towel, hug us both and shoo us away from the cookie dough.
“Get your fingers out of there! Go change your clothes, put your things away. Do you have homework? Okay, well do as you’re told and come back to the kitchen.”
John and I would fly upstairs in a frenzy to get out of our school clothes (that was back when kids still dressed in better clothes for school than for play), do our chores and get back to the kitchen. By the time we got back to the kitchen, a plate of hot cookies, chocolate chips still melting, and two glasses of milk would be on the table.
“Now, tell me about your day,” she would say. And John and I would talk over each other, eating our cookies and drinking our milk between words, to tell Mom all about the day we had at school.
As we got older, as all kids do, those afternoons changed a little. My brother wanted to be out with his friends and I was going through the usual teenage girl problems (boys) that would bring me home in tears. Mom would always come to my room, tap on the door, and sit next to me on my bed as I cried rivers about the trials and tribulations of teenage-girl-hood. She would have her arm around my shoulder, her head resting against mine and would listen, sometimes telling me about her awkward teenage years, other times just listening. Sometimes after a good cry, we would put an old black & white movie into the VCR and forget about real life for a couple of hours. She was always there.
Mom was also my example for Godliness. Every morning, without fail, I would drag to the kitchen in my half-asleep state and see her at the kitchen table, coffee cup half full and Bible open. Sometimes her eyes would be closed in prayer, other times she would be pondering the verses just read. Either way, not a morning went by without her time with the Lord.
Even in my adulthood, my Mom has been there. She listens when I need to cry and laughs when I feel comical. She offers advice when I ask and just listens when I just want to talk. She even puts me in my place now and then when I need it (We never outgrow the need for that!) She is my best friend.
There are so many memories. I could write a book just about the greatness of my Mom. Her example to me has always been one of strength and love, virtue and Godliness. She is the woman I most respect in the world. She is someone I always wanted to be like and feared I couldn’t possibly come close. She is the image that comes to mind when I read Proverbs 31:10-31, a woman of noble character.
My cookies are ready to come out of the oven; the smell of the chocolaty sweetness fills the room. I put the pan on the cooling rack and pick up the phone.
“Mom, are you busy?”
