FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: The lovely lady made from a rare cloth

Good week to all. Welcome to the “front porch.”

Mother's Day, much like Thanksgiving and Christmas, is one of those days that is just too big to put it into one 24-hour period. You feel compelled to glance back again and again at the day we all pause to honor the first woman in our lives, the one who made the most difference.

This glance back takes us at least to Oct. 3, 1973, because that’s the day we bid my mama farewell – for now.

I do believe Louise Bowen was one of those remarkable women made from a rare and precious cloth. Had she lived during Bible times, her name very well could have appeared up there with Esther, Ruth, Mary, and Rahab. The Lord might have pointed her out in a crowd and said, “I’ve not seen such faith, no, not in all of Israel.” 

Although we may be a bit prejudiced, as all of us boys are toward our mothers, the inspired man of wisdom says that is the way it should be, that the children should “arise up, and call her blessed” – not only that, “her husband also… praises her” (Proverbs 31:28).

As it was with that virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, Mama worked hard all her life, most of it down at Callaway’s cotton mill in our little Georgia hometown. Mainly she worked alone to support three boys and a girl because Daddy died in ’67 and had health problems many of the years before that.

I don’t think I ever went inside that cotton mill, although I passed by it a thousand times; and I stood outside the gate many-a-time to wait for Mama to get off work. And I can imagine the difficulty of a lady spinning her life along in such a profession. But it seemed a small thing for Mama. I never heard her complain – her faith told her God would “supply all her need” – and she wasn’t envious of others who had much more. I know that the beans and cornbread and stew she put on the table each night after a full day’s work were more than sufficient for the four of us. I always thought we were kind of rich, had everything we needed. I didn’t know until I was grown that we were a poor. I don’t think Mama ever made more than a buck-fifty an hour, making it the more amazing that she could build such a house of gold on those feeble wages.

Of the four children, I was the youngest. But Mama was not so generous when she said it. henever we’d meet somebody she knew, she’d say, her face all aglow, “And this is my baby.” That made me mad; and as soon as we walked away, I’d say, “Mama, I’m not a baby.  I’m ten-and-a half goin’ on eleven. I’m almost a man.”  And Mama would just smile and go on. I know now the pride she had swelling down inside her.

Unfortunately, Mama never saw that ‘baby’ become much more than that, but she almost did. In her latter days – with a brain tumor issuing her both blind and lame at the young age of 42 – she’d have me come to her bedside to read the Bible to her. The Lord preserved her most valuable sense – her mind – and she loved most of all to hear the reading of the Bible.  Not long before her death (I can still see it clearly), on a night on the third of August, 1973, the day before I turned 17 – she asked me to sit by the bed and read to her.

I flipped through the pages and landed, providentially no doubt, at the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. With a quivering voice, I read the story of Mama’s life right there in the words of the great apostle in that beautiful chapter of love. I read the life of a lady who worked in a cotton mill and came home to make cornbread and beans and hauled us to the Lord’s house three times or more a week and to the dentist fifty miles away once a year.

I came to that portion where Paul says, “When I was child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things,” This moment – this I did not realize at the time – would be a point in history that time’s persistent hand could never blur.

Mama gathered her strength, lifted a tired hand for me to pause, and turned her dimmed eyes toward me: “Son,” Mama said, in a tone that still gives me chills, “Are you goin’ to become a man tomorrow?”

We could offer that dear lady nothing of substance in return, only a faint and graspy assurance that I would. Somehow, we were able to make out the blurry words that concluded the chapter, then sat for some time holding her hand that night and watched as she faded off to sleep.

Three months later to the day – almost to the hour – the Lord sent heaven’s best to take that Godly mother to a much-deserved reward; and we were left to weigh it all, and to try to become that man she wanted us to be. 

As we look back, I realize that it wasn’t so hard for the young fella she called her “baby” to become a man. The weaving and spinning of time’s hand take care of most of that. The hard task, I’ve found, was something different. It was becoming a man made of the same rare and precious fabric that lovely lady was made from.

That was the job of a lifetime

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a full-time writer and preacher of the gospel. In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text 972-824-5197.