at Mom's core

The more years go by, the more obvious it is to me that our preparation for meeting the challenges of life - including older age - starts in our youngest years.  I think of my mother & how the teachings of her youth were established in her teens & an integral part of her life by her twenties.  Honesty, kindness, a love of family & community & faith - all these & many more made up the fabric of her life.  

But what was at Mom's core, more than anything else, was a quote that was her mainstay through every sort of time - "For peace has in it confidence in the Lord, that He directs all things, and provides all things, and that He leads to a good end. When a person is in this faith, he is in peace, for he then fears nothing, and no solicitude about things to come disquiets him."

In the faith she was born into & brought up in & held as her own, EVERYONE learns this key quote.  Mom made it the very core of her life.  When her father died in her late teens, when ghastly things happened in her life, when my brother died at eleven, when Dad died just shy of 62 - the deeply rooted belief that God leads ALL things to a good end keep her on her feet.  

"When a person is in this faith, he is in peace, for he then fears nothing, and no solicitude about things to come disquiets him."  A person who believes this, holds this as the central truth of life, is first blessed by the teaching & then by her utter acceptance of it's reality in her life.  

Something to hold onto when I wake up at 4:00 a.m., as little fears steal my sleep.