I wonder what my mother is doing right this second (Someone is praying for you)

[For LP, LN, & LT: You would be surprised to know how much I fret about your well-being sometimes, but I am confident in the knowledge that joy comes in the morning.]

I will not be long this morning; I have something I really must do. You know I always like to begin each morning with something positive. More often that not, things tend to end just as they begin. If we begin the week on a positive note, perhaps that positivity will carry throughout the week.

But for some strange reason I dreamed about my mother last night. And I know what you are thinking. No, I did not eat pork or anything spicy before I went to bed. In fact, I had a very healthy, very nutritious meal that my wife prepared for me and my family with love and care. But back to my dream.

I dreamed that I was back at home in my mother’s house. I walked through the house calling her name, but she did not answer. Then I stood quietly for a minute and listened, and I could hear her voice coming from behind her bedroom door.

So I knocked on her door, but she did not answer. I knocked again and again but still no answer. I then cracked the door just a little to peek in, and there was my mother on her knees in prayer, her face twisted into a desperate, pleading scowl. As I got even closer, I could see her face shining with sweat as if she had been on her knees for quite some time.

And in my dream I was so unsettled by the whole scene that was playing out in front of me, and so frightened at what might be going on in her life that would cause her to pray with such determined fervor that reaching out, I called to her, but she still did not respond. When I got close enough to her so that I might hear what she was saying, I could hear only the same name being repeated over and over again as if it were a mantra—“Max…Max…Max…Max…”

I began shake her and shake her in an effort to bring her out of the seemingly hypnotic state she was under. And finally she stopped and she looked at me and she smiled. “How are you doing this morning, baby?”

I was practically in tears at this point, but I managed to tell her that I was alright. Through my tears tied to terror, I managed to tell her she could get up now, that I was okay. She need not pray for me any longer. But she just smiled and shook her head, and she told me that she was already assured that I was okay because all this time I had been away, she had been down on her knees praying for me. And she couldn’t stop now, because she knew I was too arrogant and full of myself to get down on my knees and pray for myself.

With that she put her hand to my face, hugged me, and left a kiss on my cheek. And then clasped her hands back in front of her, closed her eyes again, and twisted her face back into a scowl, and began once again to pray, to plead—“Max…Max…Max…Max…”