Very firmly my father would say to his three quite young daughters, “Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world.” At four years old I knew that he was right, and none of us ever questioned him at all.

One day my oldest sister,hanging from the banister in the front hallway, said,”There’s going to be a contest in Atlantic City for the most beautiful girls in America, and one of them will be crowned “Miss America!”

This was really disturbing news to me, as I was sure that America was not as large as the world, and so my mother would certainly have to travel to Atlantic City, and then who knew where else she would have to go?

On a rare occasion when I found Mom alone in the kitchen I looked up at her and said, “When do you have to go to be Miss America?” After a pause she said, “What?” I repeated the question. Again she paused, then said, “I’m not going to be Miss America. Even if I Wanted to be Miss America, I couldn’t, because I’m a married woman, I’m married to your father and you kids. I’m not going away to be Miss America.” “Oh”, I said, and turned around, out the back door, across the porch, and across the back yard. I experienced a great euphoria at the thought that the most beautiful woman in the world lived in my home, and she wouldn’t leave because she is married.

Strange as it may seem, I believe that every Christian has this experience. Christians believe that their God is omnipotent, omniscient, beautiful beyond description, all loving, and all creative. But every Christian sometimes fears that, with a world full of strife and disasters, God could not possibly concern Himself with the minutia of an individual’s life. I believe that God answers us as my mother did: I cannot leave you or forsake you, because I am married to you.”

The ladder that Jacob saw in the wilderness with angels ascending and descending was really a wedding ring. The tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain were really a wedding ring, and the rock that was rolled in front to the tomb that briefly held Jesus’ body, was really a wedding ring that was engraved with his blood. I did nothing to deserve my mother’s constancy in our home. It was a gift.

On this Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, we have the chance to experience the euphoria of kinship with Him.

Love in Him,

Prue P.S. My mother never said “I’m not the most beautiful woman in the world.”