Mother’s Day 2018 seemed to be different than many other Mother’s Day Sundays in the recent past. In my 32 years as a pastor, I have given--well, most likely--32 Mother’s Day messages.  For most of those years, I rarely returned home to Ohio to spend Mother’s Day with my mom.

Mom was always very understanding about the day being a very important day in the life of a church, a day that called for the pastor to be present. I found ways to make it up to her, either by going to Ohio in the weeks prior to Mother’s Day or in the weeks after. Honestly, I wish I had taken more of those weekends off, flown to Cincinnati, and spent Mother’s Day with Mom.  

Life teaches you one of its most significant lessons: life is short.  It is unpredictable. There will be highs and lows, good and bad, joy and pain.

The only consistent part of life is following Jesus to and through each moment.  

I’m in a sermon series on the “one anothers” of the Bible. When I began preparing for the series, I knew for sure that it would be interesting, spiritually stimulating, and a great reminder to the church of how Jesus calls us to live.

I wasn’t ready for the gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, mind-blowing impact that it has brought to me and our church.  

Easter has always been the most special day of the year as a Christian. While Christmas is vitally important, Easter completes the story. Easter provides the evidence: they’ve never found His body, and they won’t.  He is risen.

The tomb is empty.

I remember the first time I saw Oklahoma City on the horizon.  My parents were driving my car, and I was driving the small U-Haul truck with my few possessions which would turn an apartment into a home. Oklahoma was going to be my home for awhile, or so I thought.  All I really knew about Oklahoma was the famous Rogers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma. Especially the line in the song that says, “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.”

It didn’t take long for me to understand the meaning of those lyrics.

It seems as if I blinked and my parents, aunts, and uncles aged, obviously and gracefully. How did life happen so quickly?  

What will it look like when I’m in my eighties--if I’m still alive, healthy, and aware-- will I still be able to have discussions and take care of myself? Will I be dependent on someone who loves me, someone I may not recognize, someone I may not be capable of telling them how thankful I am that they care, that they have not forgotten, that they still find me worthy of a visit?