My Mom, Flora Fadine

My mother’s name is Flora Fadine. I could drop the microphone and end the article here, because, whatever your mother is named doesn’t compare to mine. Flora Fadine is a name worthy of a monument! If you were raised in the cotton fields of North Louisiana just after The Great Depression, what else would you be named?

Today, she carries the marks of a lady who has endured 83 birthdays, given life to 5 kids, raised most of us as a single mother and fought battles with her health over the last 20 years. My earliest memory of church is with my head in her lap as a toddler, listening to her sweet voice as she sang “Blessed Assurance” or, maybe, “In The Garden.” To this day, the sound of her voice brings peace and love that no one can else can approach.

If there has been anything good in me, you can feel certain that it was learned at her hand, or in her lap as she rocked me on our screened porch. For each of her children, she taught us well, and even today, she models Christ to us always and loves without condition—even when I am wrong or disappointing; I know that I am always, above all; hers. What a beautiful thing to be—Fadine’s son.

I live in a house full of women—seriously, even 3 of our 4 dogs are female. While it’s “tough being the only guy.” I’m reminded that it’s more difficult on these ladies who must endure our brazen attempts to be men, to assert our imagined masculinity and establish our selfishly created machisomatic (I made that word up) authority; much less have relationships with us. Be honest men…have you ever broken your wife’s heart, your daughters? It’s a pit and a hole that no one should create, but we men all do it—over and over again. Our mothers are to be honored because, if for no other reason, the Hallmark company agrees with Exodus 20:12. I think it wise to also honor our wives, who mother our children and honor our daughters, who will mother our grandchildren.

In this difficult life, we find energy and rest in the “beautiful things.” Men don’t create many beautiful things…you remember the rhyme about us as stinky little boys and puppy dog tails and the like. I’ll add to something typed earlier; what a beautiful thing to be…Christi’s husband. What a beautiful thing to be…Connie and Carlee’s father—even though their names are not as epic as the Farmer’s Daughter.

I know that The Good Book says a lot about virtuous women and honoring your mother…something that she is (virtuous) and something that I have not done as well (honor her). It says all those things for a reason; because they are true. Matthew 5:8 (ESV) reads, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” I have seen no more pure heart in my life than that of my Mama. She showed it to me, to us, every day of our lives under her care. I think that maybe, on this earth, I’ve already seen God a time or two, because I see Him in her.

Thank you, God, for Flora Fadine. Happy Mother’s Day.