My mother was not a woman of many words. She did not give speeches. She did not write letters of advice. But she taught me more about faith, strength, and love than any book I have ever read — and she did it almost entirely without speaking.
She taught me by the way she rose before the sun to pray. I would wake to the sound of her whispering in the front room, her Bible open on her lap, and I learned before I could name it that a day begun with God is a day held by Him. She never told me to do it. She simply did it, and the watching shaped me.
She taught me by the way she fed people. A neighbor in need, a relative passing through, a stranger who became a friend at her table — no one left our home hungry. I did not understand it then, but she was preaching a sermon with every plate she filled. Love, she showed me, is something you do with your hands.
She taught me by the way she kept going when life was hard. There were seasons of scarcity, seasons of sorrow, seasons when a weaker heart would have given up. But my mother simply carried on — faithfully, quietly, with a dignity that asked for nothing. I learned that strength is not loud. Strength is the woman who prays, works, loves, and trusts God again the next morning.
Now that I am a grandmother myself, I think often about what I am teaching without saying a word. Because the lessons our children remember are rarely the ones we preach. They are the ones we live. May my life, like my mother's, preach a sermon my family will carry long after I am gone.
With love, Auntie Mina