FanStory.com - A Humble Tributeby John Cranford

Today marks a milestone for me. This is my 200th post on FanStory. I don't say this lightly or with any measure of pride, but rather humility and gratitude. No one could be more surprised at this achievement than I am.

I wrote my first poem when I was a senior in high school as part of a literary project. Almost sixty years later, after retirement, I posted that little poem on this site. I was surprised (actually, shocked) at the reception it got. That gave me the incentive to write another and another. Never did I imagine during the intervening years between that first little poem and now that I would ever develop such a love for writing; yet here I am at Number 200.

In prayerful thought this morning, I reflected on how I got to this point. Immediately, a feeling of humbleness and gratefulness surfaced. I've been blessed, undeservedly so, with the material creature comforts, which allow me to sit here in my warm home office, tap on the keys of an amazing laptop, waiting for the right words to burst forth onto the screen.

My thoughts drift back to my childhood, to a time when I wasn't so blessed...at least with the material things. My mother was a single mom who raised five children on a first-grade schoolteacher's salary. My grandmother and, at times, two uncles also lived with us. We didn't always have the necessities, much less the luxuries, we enjoy today.

I've written a little devotional about my mother entitled Mother's Gift and several poems and stories about her. She was the love of my life. She died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on her 51st birthday. I was 13 years old at the time.

I feel a little guilty thinking about how easy life is for me and how difficult it was for her. She struggled so financially but she never let us know it. She always seemed joyful and happy, and these qualities were so pervasive in all of us that we never realized we were the poorest family in the neighborhood. She never took, she always gave...giving of herself to everyone she met. She had this inexplicable aura of peace and calm about her that always drew people in.

Where did Mother get the strength and the will to carry on in the face of the hurdles she had to endure? It's obvious to me that she possessed an overabundance of faith in and a love for God that lifted her above the worldly cares of this life.

Mother was truly grateful for what she had and gave no thought to what she didn't. She never lost faith in God. She knew that in whatever circumstance He placed her, good or bad, He would be with her, and she would be stronger for it. She instilled that belief in us, and we carry the values she lived by with us today.

Besides being a mother hen to all her first graders for twenty years, Mother also had a love of writing. She apparently passed down that love to me through osmosis. I know she wonders why it took me so long to realize this wonderful gift she gave me. I'm convinced that she had a hand in leading me to FanStory.

The humility and gratitude I feel, I owe to her. But there's much more than that. By watching the way she lived those few years I was blessed to have her in my life, she drew me close to Jesus Christ without me even being aware of it. He has been with me ever since, and my relationship with Him has grown stronger as the years have flown by. What bigger blessing could a mother give her children?

I'm sure Mother was reluctant to leave us so early without having the opportunity to see all of us grow up. I'm sure when she saw Jesus, face to face, He promised her He would take care of us...and Mother, just so you know, He kept His promise.

So, I hope you will indulge me with this writing. I wanted my 200th post to be special. I can't imagine anything more special than paying tribute to the one who made me who I am today...a most humble and gentle person...my mother. Until we meet again, and my journey home is complete, I will continue to write.