Missionary Mom Quotes

Mom, there’s a missionary at my door. I need to go talk to him, I lie. Mormon?she asks. I have no idea why. Does it matter? Gotta go.

My theory is that Dad wanted to give Mom the only anniversary gift he hadn’t given her yet.” “You would take the romantic approach.” Zander had remained standing, one shoulder casually braced against the fireplace. “I think their anniversary reminded Garner that they’re getting older, and if they were ever going to be missionaries, it needed to be now.” Nora arched an eyebrow. “You would take the death-is-imminent approach.

I can’t give this letter a storybook ending in the world’s eyes. Today finds Bob back to his regular schedule and the boys spending extra time talking with me flopped across the foot of my bed, which seems to be my permanent residence for now. My head symptoms have not changed. The medication has not settled well, and so the struggle continues. Whether I am in the valley or soaring above the mountain tops, God is there with me. I thank God that I am able to be His child. Now that’s a true storybook ending!

In an attempt to help me move on from my failed marriage, my mom set me up with Jesus Freak. In fact, the stoner hadn’t even finished moving out when she told me not to worry, because she already had someone better lined up for me. I was just lonely and desperate enough to endure a four-month celibate long distance relationship with a guy who read 15 chapters of the Bible and prayed for two hours every day and expected me to follow suit. He wanted to give our hypothetical children Bible names and for us to move to Korea to become missionaries.

These things may sound trivial, but they are signs of adjustment in our human aspect of life. We are just your average family. I’m happy to report we’re all saved by grace and living in His power. Because of the unique culture we live in, we face different struggles in this earthly journey. It is always fun to sit back and marvel at how God will work out each of the situations that distract us from fellowship with Him. These distractions can strengthen us in our walk if we allow God to take hold. Or, they can keep us away from our source of life and strength: God, our maker.

Remember Aesop’s Tale of the Traveler Please note: The wind failed To make him Shed his coat It was the sun That won. (88)

That night, while the rest of the family had charcoal-grilled veal chops, which were my favorite Italian food and which were only served once each year when we were staying at the Pensione Biea and which Mom never made for us at home because we were missionaries and the Lord provided for our needs but not that well, I got a huge serving platter full of deep fried octopus pieces.

I gave haircuts this morning. The boys think I should do them just like the short-term beautician who was here. Their regular cut with her was a shave up the side coming to a v in the back. Right. Well, I did my best. Josh thinks he may need to wear a hat all weekend. The All West African baseball tournament is in Lomé, and he doesn’t have two days to wait until a bad haircut turns into a good one. Grandpa always said, ‘The only difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two days.

The other missionary then said the blessing, asking for Mom’s life to be extended if it was God’s will. Grandma jumped up from her seat and said, “Even if it’s not God’s will, goddamnit!” which disrupted the Holy Spirit so the missionary had to start the prayer over.

I believe that my parents’ call to the ministry actually drove them crazy. They were happiest when farthest away from their missionary work, wandering the back streets of Florence; or, rather, when they turned their missionary work into something very unmissionary-like, such as talking about art history instead of Christ. Perhaps this is because at those times they were farthest away from other people’s expectations. I think religion was actually their source of tragedy. Mom tried to dress, talk, and act like anything but what she was. Dad looked flustered if fundamentalists, especially Calvinist theologians, would intrude into a discussion and try to steer it away from art or philosophy so they could discuss the finer points of arcane theology. And Dad was always in a better mood before leading a discussion or before giving a lecture on a cultural topic, than he was before preaching on Sunday. I remember Dad screaming at Mom one Sunday; then he threw a potted ivy at her. Then he put on his suit and went down to preach his Sunday sermon in our living-room chapel. It was not the only Sunday Dad switched gears from rage to preaching. And this was the same chapel that the Billy Graham family sometimes dropped by to worship in, along with their Swiss-Armenian, multimillionaire in-laws, after Billy—like some Middle Eastern potentate—arranged for his seventeen-year-old daughter’s marriage to the son of a particularly wealthy donor who lived up the road from us in the ski resort of Villars. Did

Train the consumer to consume temporary fillers. Tell her to collect the tokens that assure her that she has what she needs. Tell her to seek joy in learning that home remedy, buying that decoration, rearranging that schedule, enrolling her kids in that program, or building herself up into the image that she wants to embody. All of those things are easy enough to do if you have enough money, discipline, time, energy, or earthly resources. But there’s a catch: collecting the tokens and living by the lie that your image will give you the peace you crave will only satisfy you for a moment. And then you need another fix. Idols need dusting and maintaining. They always leave you wanting something more, something better, something new, or something your neighbor has. Consuming, we are consumed. When the gods of this world leverage our needs and redirect our hope away from God himself, they indirectly hinder our obedience to the Great Commission. How many missionaries have been held back by consumerism’s short leash? (We can’t afford to go.) How many of our giving budgets have been strangled by consumerism’s shortsighted vision? (We can’t afford to give.) How many of our families have been capped by consumeristic spending forecasts? (We can’t afford to grow.) We need the promises of Jesus to drown out the siren song of consumerism. He’s given missional moms his anchoring promise to hold us fast: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Will we trust him more than we trust our stuff?

Sentness is not just for missionaries to foreign lands. The shift is for all of us—students and workers, parents and kids, professionals and laborers, artists and accountants, moms and mechanics. We are all sent into our world.

you cannot live a life that only empties. Pretty soon you’d be so hollow that you’d have nothing to offer those around you.

He loves me more than I can ever imagine and not because I am a missionary. Not because I am a wife. Not because I am a mom. But because, and only because, I am His child. Not because of what I do, but because of who I am.

I think anyone who has experienced a major personal or theological shift can understand exactly why book writing freaks me the fuck out. It’s because our beliefs tend to change over time, so much that in many ways I’m not even the same person I was when I first fell in love with Jesus. I mean, if I met 1998 Christian me, with her gold-cross necklace and her mom bob and her cheap, cheesy platitudes today? I’d probably give her the finger. That’s the inherent problem with writing a book centered on life and faith. It’s that, in the end, my own perception of God is subjective and insufficient and ever changing. I’m still in the middle of this process and I will undoubtedly continue to change, but this book won’t be changing with me. In ten years this is all just gonna be a big fat public record of how dumb I was when I wrote it, so I might as well just get the apologies out of the way right now.