Know Greater Love

I don't know why I felt led to share this today, but the idea won't leave me, so there must be someone out there in cyberspace who needs to read it. It is my testimony for a book that my church publishes every year or so with members' stories of redemption and healing.

When I was asked to write an entry for Know Greater Love, I knew I had a testimony, but I didn’t know how I could make it valuable for others. I have known many tragedies and maintained my faith, but I’m still in the grieving process. My oldest son Jason was killed in a tragic one-vehicle accident on Sept. 20, 2008. His death was the fifth death in my immediate family in thirteen years, so I know how to grieve; the question is do I know how to stop grieving?
I finally decided to make this a tribute to my mother, Mabel Rider, the person who died thirteen years before Jason’s death. I attribute my spiritual strength and survival directly to her example. Did I ever see my mother lose a child? No. I did see her lose a seven-year-old niece to leukemia and two sisters, and I witnessed her rejoicing that their troubles and illnesses were over and that they were in heaven. How did she equip me for my grief-filled life? She lived a Christ-centered life and displayed a faith that was inspirational to me. She set a standard of faith that has allowed me to experience the unthinkable and maintain a love for God. She accepted life’s challenges with grace and faith and made sure that I knew that this life is a dress rehearsal for eternity. This was her legacy to me.
Her compassion was an example to me and my family throughout her life. One memory that stands out vividly for me is from when my seventy-year-old mother and I went to the Free Will Baptist National Convention many years ago. The night of the missionary service, which is usually the largest of the convention’s services, the venue next to us was having a Guns and Roses concert. The variety of people walking to the convention was a sight to behold. There were men and women in suits and dresses walking along side young people in black with pierced faces, tattoos, etc. You get the picture. As we were driving to the parking garage, we saw a young woman who appeared intoxicated, wearing an outfit that was quite risqué. I was so proud that my ten-year-old daughter and her friends heard my mother say, “Bless her Heart” instead of “Well, I never.” She remains the voice in my head. As our sermon series on the family taught us, it is never too late to be an example to your children.
I was born the fourth child in my family; my siblings were twelve, ten, and eight years old, so you can imagine how rotten I was. If you had watched the dynamic in my family from a distance, you probably would not have liked me very much. I was spoiled and the center of attention. I didn’t have to cook because my older sisters could do that, so my job was to set the table and clear the table. During Saturday cleaning, my jobs were to dust the furniture and clean the mirrors. It was my sisters who cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms and who did the laundry. I even remember sitting in the kitchen talking to my sister Phyllis while she was cooking dinner, but I never offered to help. She admitted when we were adults that she couldn’t stand me until Jason was born. She loved him so much that she was willing to put up with me. She was my idol, but I was so self-centered that I couldn’t understand at all why she would get so angry and frustrated with me.
I went to church with my mother for as long as I can remember. My dad wasn’t a Christian, but he was a very good man. Honest and dependable, he was the kind of man who is most difficult to reach because he lived a decent life, much more decent than some of the men in our church. I rejoice in the fact that Daddy was saved and baptized (by Brother Delbert) at age seventy.
I was saved when I was eight and continued to attend church throughout my years living at home. I was a smart teenager because I knew that as long as I would go to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, I was pretty much allowed all the freedom that was customary in the early seventies. I pushed the limits of that freedom during my teenage years, and as I had been warned many times, “I found myself in places I didn’t want to be, with people I didn’t want to be with, doing things I didn’t want to do.” My mother continued to pray for me and love me unconditionally even when I wasn’t very lovable.
It was during those years of rebellion that I made major decisions of my life. I married my husband Tony who had been my early high school sweetheart. We reconnected when I began college. After we married, he finished college while I worked, and then he supported me until I received my degree. Our oldest child Jason was born in 1975, and Allison was born in 1980.
I continued to go my own way until I was twenty-seven. At that time Tony and I had both taught for several years. He was not interested in attending church with us, but I knew in my heart that my children needed to be in church. I don’t think there was a single event that made me realize that the kids and I needed to be in church. I took them to VBS one summer and saw how much they both liked it. It brought to mind my childhood experiences of church camp, VBS, Sunday School, and the Holy Spirit reminded me of the responsibility I had to continue my mother’s legacy to them. Jason was already seven, and Allison was almost three, and the only time we went to church up to that point was when we were visiting my parents. Later we had another son, Carson, who attended church from the first week of his birth. I was involved in all church activities, sang in the choir, taught Sunday School, taught and directed VBS, went on church trips, camp, etc. I think watching my mother do all these things made me realize that it was ok for a woman who attended church without her husband to be involved. I always watched carefully for warning signs of resentment from Tony so that he wouldn’t be angry that we were so involved. I really think he liked that his children were involved in church; he knew from teaching school that church attendance made a difference in his students’ behavior. All three of our children were saved and baptized when they were young.
I’ve said all this to get to the point of my testimony. My mother died July 10, 1996. At that time both of my sisters were in very compromised health, and my brother lived hours away. Guess what? That spoiled little brat who never had to do the hard jobs suddenly became the caregiver for her father. I didn’t have time to grieve Mom’s death because Daddy had a stroke two weeks after she died, and he lost the use of his right hand. Fortunately, his overall health was good, but he needed daily help. For seven years I went to see Daddy every day all the while teaching full-time, and supporting Allison and Carson in their activities.
At the time of my mother’s death, my sister Phyllis had just been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Her health deteriorated over the next few years, and my grief at watching her suffer and die was the worst thing I had ever experienced. She had been exposed to a chemical in her job at Tinker Field that caused her illness. Even though the government paid worker’s compensation to her, no amount of money could give her the good health that had been taken away. After years of suffering, Phyllis died on Dec. 19, 2002 at age 55. I have never been so angry in my life. I was mad at God, the federal government, Phyllis’s ex-husband (for causing her to have to go to work in the shops at Tinker many years earlier) her doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, anyone who had a part in her illness and death. I think my anger distorted my grief during that time. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my sister was in heaven, but I wanted her here with her family. She left her husband, children, very young grandchildren along with my dad who only lived ten months after her death. Daddy died after having a massive stroke on Sept. 30, 2003. Phyllis’s early death was too much for his eighty-three-year-old heart, and his grief at losing a child was just too much to bear. The one thing I could rejoice in was that Mom wasn’t here to suffer the loss of her child or husband.
My oldest sister Linda had been in poor health for many years. She was overweight, legally blind, and suffered from crippling arthritis. I really never expected her to reach old age. She died in August of 2005 after an extended illness. By this time Carson and I were attending Harrah Church.
The year after Carson graduated from high school, Jason returned to the nest for several months. He had gotten a divorce a few years earlier and had been drifting a little, so we were glad to have him home. He stayed from February through November of 2007, months that I consider to be the greatest gift God has ever given me. During those months Jason also attended Harrah Church with me. He loved the music, the preaching, and our small group, Total Body. Remember the Easter Sunday that Jimmy preached about baggage? I watched as my son wrote something down and took it to the front and placed it in the trunk that Jimmy burned that very day. Some kind of baggage that he had been carrying around was gone. During the months he lived with us, Jason and I spent time together, exercising, cooking, going to movies; he helped us with Relay for Life of Tecumseh. Tony, Jason, and I watched OSU basketball, and went out to dinner every Friday. We got to know Jason, the 32-year-old man. The last time he had spent any time at all at home was when he was 21, the summer between Connor’s and OSU.
Jason was a “sure nuff” cowboy. Tony’s dad was a professional cutting horse trainer and taught Jason as soon as he could sit a saddle. Jason spent his childhood competing in cutting horse competitions. During high school he was Oklahoma’s state champion cutter two years and competed in the National High School Finals Rodeo in Shawnee. Cutting is a cow-calf event. The horse and rider “cuts” a calf out of a herd and then the horse goes to work to keep the calf from returning to the herd. Jason was a natural at training because he respected the animals he worked with and had learned from his granddad how to train the horses. He worked and lived during college on a ranch near Stillwater where he continued to learn the craft. He spent most of his adult life training cutting horses. He completed his degree from OSU in Animal Science, but he was really only content when he was training horses. One of the things I learned after his death is that he had trained a American Quarter Horse Association World champion while he worked in Stillwater. A man who owned the horse wrote me a letter to describe his experience of competing on the horse that Jason trained as a two-year- old. I will always wonder why he didn’t share that with us.
A couple whom he attended college with were living on her father’s ranch in Nebraska. They had begged Jason to come up there and train for them. The ranch is a large cattle operation, but they had always dabbled in horses a little. They had an indoor heated practice arena and the means to buy good horses. He really didn’t want to go so far away from home, but it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. In November of 2007, he moved into the ranch house in Nebraska.
He lived and worked on the ranch until his death in Sept. of 2008. Up until that time, I had only thought I had experienced grief. When we received the “knock” at 3:00 in the morning on Sept. 21, and learned that Jason had not survived a roll-over accident, I hit the floor. My legs would not hold me up. At that very moment, my cousin Becky who lives in Tulsa, woke up feeling the need to pray. She didn’t know who for, but God did, so she prayed, and I stood up.
I’m still standing; over a year has gone by, and I miss him just as much today as I did during the first few weeks, but I am able to talk about him and remember the great kid he was and the great man he became. The out-pouring of love and support from the people of Harrah Church, Tecumseh, Stillwater, and Gordon, Nebraska spoke volumes to me. My son was dearly loved by many. After his funeral, Tony’s comment of “I am at peace” reflected the sentiments of us all. As a family we are determined to honor Jason’s life by remaining strong and united. My children miss their brother; Tony and I miss our son, but we will not let our loss define us. I feel a great responsibility to pass on the legacy that my mother began. The strength of enduring faith is all that has sustained me. My family is watching me, not just my husband and children, but my brother and all of my nieces and nephews. They must see Jesus in me. They must see me living a life that is confident that Jason will be a part of my eternity.
During this past year I have recalled multiple conversations I had with Mom in the last year of her life. She had to go to a doctor in OKC every Wednesday for the last months of her life, and I had the privilege of taking her. She shared her faith with me, and surprisingly, she also told me of her doubts. Her honesty was so refreshing to me because I have always been too logical for my own good. My logical nature sometimes caused me to doubt my religious teachings, but I never dreamed that my mother also had those doubts.
Because of the events of the past year, my doubts have lessened. I have witnessed God’s working in many ways to remind me that this life is temporary and that I will spend eternity with Mom, Dad, Phyllis, Linda, and Jason. We’re on a break right now, and while I’m down here with the struggles and joys of this life, they are in heaven with only joy.
What does my story teach the readers? My mother could not have guessed how much I would need to rely on God during my lifetime. The important thing is that she equipped me to survive whatever came my way by providing a spiritual legacy for me to draw from. None of us know what our children will face in their lifetimes. We all owe them a spiritual backbone so that they will stand throughout life’s hardships.