It seems like from as far back as I can remember, I was a rebel. I was born with a restless spirit that fought against the lines, and I gave my parents trouble through my whole childhood. My youth was a storm of school trouble, fights, suspensions, and eventually, the cold iron of jail. You name it, I did it. I tore through life like a man trying to outrun his own shadow, leaving a trail of worry behind me. But Momma never gave up. Momma never quit, even when others would have—and did.
Through every late-night phone call and every heartache I caused, she kept her hand on the plow. She kept taking me and my younger siblings to church and to vacation Bible schools whenever and wherever she could find one, fiercely guarding the importance of family time. Back then, watching me slide further into the world, it might not have looked like those small mustard seeds found good soil. It looked like dry, hardened ground. But the scripture stands absolute: “And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.” (Luke 17:6).
Our Lord, in His perfect time, remembered those prayers and watered those hidden seeds. And when Jesus waters a plant, it doesn’t just survive—it grows into a wonderful tree that breaks through the hard earth and bears good fruit.
Momma’s, if you are reading this today, don’t you give up. Don’t you ever quit praying for them babies, no matter how old they get or how far they stray. The world will tell you they are gone too far, but the world does not know the power of a praying mother. Hold fast to the truth of the Word and trust with everything in you that God has His hand over them, even in the dark.
Sadly, sometimes some of us have to learn the hard way. We climb down into the pit of sin with the very rope Satan talked us into making, knot by knot, compromise by compromise. We get so busy climbing down that we don’t realize how dark it has become, and we have to get to the absolute, frayed end of that rope before we ever look up to see how far down we have gone. But when you hit the bottom of the pit, the only place left to look is up.
Mommas plant the seeds in tears, and God waters those seeds in grace. I am living, breathing proof of that unmerited mercy. God is Good!