Family

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Funny, the things you remember.

My mother always made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with peanut butter on both slices of bread. That way the jelly would not go through and soak the bread. I always noticed how other people's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were soaked on one side and thought how special I was to have no soakage with my peanut butter sandwiches.

My mother was unique in other ways. For one thing, she was English. Nobody else's mother was English. People even told me I had an English accent until after I was 5 or so. My brother and I used to make fun of the way our mother said "tomato." She would say, "Tomahto," and we would laugh at her.

"That's not how you say it, Mom. You say it like this: tomayto," we would tell her. I don't remember any discussion about it, but she eventually pretty much lost all her accent.

These are memories I can't precisely place in time. Either one could have occurred before or after the divorce. Everything changed after the divorce, but the fact that she always made superior peanut butter sandwiches never changed. As for "correcting" her pronunciation of "tomato," I think I, at least, would have been more likely to criticize my mother after the divorce.

My brother and I both think of our childhood in terms of "before the divorce and after the divorce." I have even gone so far as to say that my childhood was stolen when my parents got a divorce, and irreparable damage happened in our lives as a result of it. Irreparable, that is, if not for the redeeming power and love of God.

Even though it has been 50 years since my parents' divorce, not a day goes by that I don't think about it in one context or another. And thinking about my mother's peanut butter sandwiches reminds me of my mother's uniqueness and how much I love her even after blaming her for so many years for divorcing my father.

Since having a saving encounter with the living God 31 years ago, healing after healing has taken place, and now I hope to be a blessing somehow to individuals and families who have been touched by divorce. I am still seeking God for the precise approach, but one thing He has taught me is that He never wastes anything that happens in our lives. When we give it to Him, I believe He uses it all for His glory.

God calls us into an army in which we do battle regaining ground the enemy has stolen. God receives glory each time we allow Him into the midst of our troubles because in each of them God Himself becomes more precious and we become better prepared to glorify Him.

Funny how it took a peanut butter sandwich to remind me of this.

"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." (2 Corinthians 4:17)

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