Leaving Something Behind

    Paul encouraged Titus to encourage older women to teach younger women. Though there's not enough of it in our culture, his words still ring true today.

 

 

“(that) the older women likewise… be reverent in behavior,… teachers of good things-that they admonish the younger women… that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” (Titus 2:3-5, NKJV)

 

     I was watching a wonderful movie today; one that I’ve seen before. In the movie, “Step-Mom,” there’s a couple of scenes that would cause the most callous man to cry.

 

    Susan Sarandon, a divorced woman being “replaced” by a younger woman, and Julia Roberts, meet for lunch in a quaint café. ‘Til now they have maintained a troubled truce with one another, but as the movie ends, they give themselves over to a growing friendship.

 

    The older woman is dying, literally. Her imminent passage off this planet, and her love for the two children she will leave behind, serve as a catalyst for rapport with the one who will take on her role. As the women begin to talk their spirits almost touch, tears course down their cheeks and they surrender their enmity forever.

 

    The words of this particular scene impacted me so much that I played it again and again, ‘til I had typed the entire passage. Following are the women’s words.

     

Roberts: “I NEVER WANTED TO BE A MOM. SHARING IT WOULD BE ONE THING. (BUT) CARRYING IT ALONE THE REST OF MY LIFE. (WELL, THAT’S ANOTHER THING.) ALWAYS BEING COMPARED TO YOU. YOU’RE PERFECT. THEY WORSHIP YOU. I’D BE LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER FOR TWENTY YEARS, KNOWING THAT SOMEONE ELSE WOULD HAVE DONE IT RIGHT. DONE IT BETTER. THE WAY THAT I CAN’T.”

 

Sarandon: “WHAT DO I HAVE THAT YOU DON’T?”  Roberts: “YOU’RE MOTHER EARTH, INCARNATE.” Sarandon: “YOU’RE HIP AND FRESH.” Roberts: “YOU KNOW EVERY STORY, EVERY WOUND, EVERY MEMORY. THEIR WHOLE LIFE HAPPINESS IS WRAPPED UP IN YOU. EVERY SINGLE MOMENT.

 

DON’T YOU GET IT? LOOK DOWN THE ROAD TO HER WEDDING. I’M IN A ROOM ALONE WITH HER FITTING HER VEIL. FLUFFING HER DRESS. TELLING HER ‘NO WOMAN HAS EVER LOOKED AS BEAUTIFUL.’ AND MY FEAR IS THAT SHE’LL BE THINKING, ‘I WISH MY MOM WAS HERE.” Sarandon: “AND MINE IS SHE WON’T.”

 

Sarandon: “BUT THE TRUTH IS SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO CHOOSE. SHE CAN HAVE US BOTH. AND SHE WILL BE A BETTER PERSON BECAUSE OF ME AND BECAUSE OF YOU. I HAVE THEIR PAST. YOU CAN HAVE THEIR FUTURE.”

 

    Call me an “old softie,” but I love those words. They’re just so real, so poignant, so likely (or they should be.)

    

    And I think if two women like these could conceivably lay down their bitterness and misunderstanding, where does that leave the rest of us? As elders, men and women alike, we should be encouraging, we should be discipling, we should be impacting, we should be influencing those younger than us.

 

    And I cannot but mention a personal heroine of mine. Time would fail me to adequately characterize this young lady, but suffice it to say that Laura Hillenbrand suffered greatly, physically and emotionally, in order to write and publish her monumental work, Seabiscuit.

 

    She reflects on a “momentary mentor” from her own youth.

 

    “I think I decided to be a writer one summer afternoon in my childhood, when the neighborhood pool I was swimming in was temporarily closed due to lightning. I snatched up my towel and huddled on a big porch with the other kids, waiting out the storm. A man I had never seen before sat down on a plastic lawn chair near me, brought out an illustrated copy of The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner and offered to read it. Most of the kids left, but two or three of us stayed to listen, sitting cross-legged on the floor around him. As he read, I slipped so deeply into the narrative that the thunderstorm around me seemed to be rushing out of the words themselves. My head was ringing with those words as I walked home. I never knew who the man was, but I never really got over that day.”

 

    I love it! A still-unidentified man who momentarily touched the life of a young lady, but who made a permanent difference in her entire existence! Consider this. Laura Hillenbrand’s wonderful story of Seabiscuit, her first book, made the New York Times Best Seller List, and inspired the movie of the same name!

 

    I, too, am busy discipling people, and I can tell you there’s no reward, no benefit, no blessing like it. For with every opportunity for ministry, there is that corresponding blessing that returns to the sender.

 

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "A Dream Book"