I was raised in the countryside in central Florida. My backyard was undeveloped wild land, with creeks, palmettos, cypress, and snakes. Alligators, too. I could strike out in the morning on my bicycle or walk with my .22 rifle and not return until sunset, never seeing another soul. The untamed woods, except for the earthen dams or the gravel mining roads, were a call to the wild for me. In a sense, life inside my parent's house was as wild as the woods outside. Mom and Dad were as different as night and day.
Mom was a Christian; the sincere kind. Her Bible was marked up with notes and dates where she's read the whole thing from Genesis to Revelation. I've got one old KJV Bible she'd read through 11 times. Mom loved the Bible. But even more, she loved Jesus. She talked to Him a lot. Mom was what's called an intercessor.
Not dad. Dad was a hard-working, whiskey-drinking, brilliant supervisor over a large mining operation. His company extracted phosphate rock from the ground using huge draglines, fearsome machines that could ponderously walk across the ground. At one point during his 35-year career, a thousand men worked for him. He pioneered innovative ideas for mining safety and efficiency. At his funeral, one respected engineer called dad, "Mr. Phosphate," an amazing accolade for a self-taught man with a sixth-grade education.
Dad didn't go to church. He didn't see any point to it. He thought church was for women and sissies, and dad didn't have any lace on his drawers. His manliness was the John Wayne style, not refined or citified. In a crisis, dad was a man of action. He would get angry at stupidity. He could rally men to follow by force of his formidable will. Mom would get on her knees and pray. How dad and mom, being so different, could ever fall in love, or despite their differences, stay married, was beyond me but they did it.
Dad's accomplishments were visible and measurable. Mom's achievements not so obvious, but equally dramatic and perhaps more permanent. The mining operation played out, the jobs ended, the mine was dismantled, and the land was reclaimed. But Mom's legacy in prayer never ceased.
In the church where mom was a member, at the 30-year anniversary of the senior pastor, he honored mom's memory for the prayer ministry she had established. Across the giant auditorium, they strung up 25,000 cards that had prayers answered under mom's prayer team ministry. The pastor credited prayer as being the main reason the church had thrived.
I felt personally impacted by mom's prayers. She always prayed for her family. I'm convinced that there were times when our lives were spared because she had been praying for us. I'm named after a baby brother who died after just one week of life. Mom told the Lord in prayer, "If you'll give me another child, I'll give him to You."
Seven years later, at a time when she and dad thought they were finished having children, the Lord gave her identical twins - two boys! Both of us came to know the Lord at an early age. Both of us were dedicated to God and both of us went to Bible College. Don has served the Lord mostly as a businessman and I have served the Lord mostly as a pastor. Mom's prayers were answered. Her godly prayers continue until this present day. Whatever your career may be, leave a legacy of prayer.
-- Ron Wood is a writer and minister. Email him at [email protected] or visit www.touchedbygrace.org. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 02/20/2019