Beauty for Ashes

My mother passed away three weeks ago yesterday.

My mom had lived a life of significance. She grew up a migrant worker in Hastings, Florida. She and her siblings, eight in all, picked potatoes and cabbage and whatever else was in season. It was a difficult, humble life straddling the divide between Jim Crow and the Black Codes and coming of age during the charged atmosphere of the Civil Rights Movement.

(This post will be long enough without a segue into commentary about how recent events prove that a racially charged atmosphere is not a Haley’s comet type state of being in America. From 1619 to George Floyd unmistakably demonstrates that racism is the American zeitgeist – baked and bred into the fabric of our nation for 400 years. But I’ll reserve a full discussion of that for another time.)

Later my mother earned a Master’s degree in microbiology and taught high school science for 30 years while, as a divorced mom she raised four children being paid a schoolteacher’s salary that was delivered once a month. I have two children and I’ve made more than my mom did most of my professional career. But I’m not sure I did as well keeping the budget balanced. I wonder how she kept it all together including her own emotional and spiritual well-being.

After retiring from the school system, a series of events, unforeseen by her but orchestrated by divine intervention, made my mother the pastor of a local church. She embraced the calling with her characteristic dedication and commitment. Her ministry, her relationship with Christ and studying the Bible became her oxygen. I think that Maya Angelo and my mother must have been acquainted because when she wrote Phenomenal Woman, she had to be penning an ode to mom.  

When she was living we didn’t always see eye to eye, I guess that’s just the way of moms and daughters. So, until her death I didn’t comprehend – truly comprehend who she was. I didn’t fully see what she had accomplished. But this woman who started with the deck stacked against her, a poor, black woman in the Jim Crow Deep South had amassed enough to leave a home and land to each of her children – most free and clear. The one property that was not free and clear had revenue from other enterprises to cover the note effortlessly.

My mother had battled through tuberculosis, two bouts with breast cancer, two strokes and a mild heart attack. But throughout that time it had been impressed upon her heart that “no sickness is unto death” for her. So even in this time of COVID-19, my mother did not die of sickness. Her death certificate reads “natural causes”. She gracefully submitted to her rest. Even as the scriptures say,

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” (Ps 116:15)

That was the full arc of my mom’s life – from humble migrant worker to a woman who left a legacy. It’s a story of overcoming, of victory, of doggedly, determinedly year after year, choice after choice building a life of significance literally out of the dirt of cabbage and potato fields. It demonstrates the goodness, faithfulness and all-sufficiency of the God she dedicated her life to honoring.

So here’s the thing. In order to see that, you have to see the entire story – from the beginning to the end.

But last night after fulfilling my mother’s last wishes to have her ashes sprinkled at her favorite fishing hole (I know! It’s ok to smile), someone presented me with a photo. I didn’t recognize anyone in it but it looked like a young white girl about 10 sitting next to a young black boy around the same age maybe taken at a picnic or family barbeque. The little boy looked astonishingly identical to my son. To my shock, I was told by my older siblings that the “little boy” I was looking at – was me!

I was immediately, awash in shame.

You see, I have worked so hard to distance myself from that time in my life – a time when I was drowning in self-hate. I hated my short, boyish hair. I hated my dark skin. I hated my smile so much that I covered my mouth with my hand when I laughed so no one would see. I hated that I was so ugly and so small -mostly in my own eyes.

At 50 years old I’d never realized how much I do, the choices I make, the self-image I have painstakingly constructed – even leaving home at 17 and vowing to never look back again – all of it was about distancing myself from that person I hated. That person who had just suddenly reemerged, invading my now.  At 50 years old I didn’t realize how immediately and how effectively my precariously perched self-image could shatter rendering me that ugly, shy, broken little girl again.

I woke up this morning trying to process why in the midst of my mother’s death, the George Floyd events, and COVID-19 I was feeling so shook by an old photo. I opened up my mom’s study bible that I had sitting on my nightstand, settled my spirit and began to search inside.  And as He is so faithful to do, He gave me the sweetest comfort.

In my mom’s story, if you don’t understand the migrant worker from the Jim Crow South, you can’t fully appreciate the mogul who snatched victory from that evil system by leaving an inheritance for each of her children. So it is with me.

God hasn’t forgotten that little girl who I rejected as certainly as everyone else had back then. And He’s reminding me of her because just like the migrant worker is the beginning of my mother’s arc. That precious little girl is the beginning of mine and I need to see her. I need to embrace her. I need to accept her.  I need to heal her.

She represents the place where I stood broken at the foot of the cross longing for acceptance and self-worth. It was her in whom He first took pleasure and it was to her He promised beauty for ashes. We are inextricably bound her and I. Without her my story has no beginning – makes no sense. My future is the manifestation of the promises He made to her. Just as surely as my mom’s future grew from the promises God made a migrant worker in the Jim Crow South.

Have you ever tried to outrun your beginning? It doesn’t work, sis. Turn around, embrace it and let God amaze you with the full arc of your life.

Love you and stay safe during this crazy time. xo