Discovering the Unexpected

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction;

don’t neglect your mother’s teaching;

for they are a graceful wreath on your head,

and beads for your neck.

Proverbs 1:8-9 CEB

Moms give advice. It’s what we do. And anyone who has listened to Anita Renfroe’s brilliant “Momisms” routine will undoubtedly hear something they’ve said…or heard from their own moms…those day-to-day tidbits that guide our children into being better people.

We hope.

My mother was full of such sayings, and even today, if I start a sentence with the phrase “As my mother used to say,” my friends will roll their eyes. But I always found such scraps endearing. My mother’s wisdom, however, didn’t stop there.

Tormented by a classmate in junior high school, I finally turned to my mother, who gave me one suggestion that ended the trouble. When I got into a violent altercation with another classmate, who then wanted to flirt with me, she warned me about men who liked quarrelsome women.

But it was the unexpected bits of wisdom that came out in our conversations about quilts, men, and faith that sank deep into my soul. Stories about how my grandparents lived, actions they took that revealed their character, hope, and beliefs. My grandmother, who fed dozens of field hands every morning because she had eggs, bacon, butter, and flour, and most of them did not. Stories about quilting bees and community, people who were kind and helpful, who welcomed strangers and went out into the night because someone needed them.

It is within these tales that the sharpest wisdom is embedded.

If we listen.