Month: December 2025

My Mom

Mary Elaine Califf2 Comments

This would have been my mother’s 79th birthday had we not lost her earlier this year. We had really been losing her for a while, since she suffered from dementia, but we are thankful that she remained kind and patient to the end.
Kindness and patience were her hallmarks, along with a rock-solid devotion to God, which she also maintained until she could no longer hold her Bible to read it. She might not have recognized all of the people on her prayer list or been able to remember what chapters she read the day before, but she faithfully spent time praying for each name on the list and spent time reading and meditating over scripture each day.
Mom waited a lot. One of my favorite stories from before my memory of her starts is from my toddler years. I was apparently old enough to pick my own toys, but I wasn’t interested in doing so. I’m told that she just sat in the doorway to my room and calmly told me that I would not be leaving until the room was picked up, and waited until I had all my toys picked up. Calm, patient, steady discipline was characteristic of her interaction with children and animals, which is part of why both loved her.
In his partially drafted autobiography, my father wrote of telling my mother that he felt they were called to the mission field, only to be informed that she had committed her life to missions at age 12. She had simply waited for over a decade for God to pull Dad to the point where he was ready for the call.
Mom was a highly practical and capable person. She was a good cook, a good housekeeper, and a good seamstress who worked hard to help her daughters learn those skills.
She was also good at making a house a home, a skill that she had many opportunities to practice over the years. I don’t think Mom ever wanted to move as frequently as life with Dad demanded, but she never complained, just helped pack and unpack and then worked on arranging the house and its decor into a welcoming atmosphere. We recently moved, and I’m sad that I won’t have her help with the task of deciding what to hang on which wall, since she has helped me with that in our past homes.
Mom really cared about people and worked to know them well. She and I had very different tastes in clothing, both colors and style. I was very glad to grow too tall to wear her old clothes, because they never suited me at all. However, Mom was one of the few people I trusted to select clothing for me, because she took the trouble to really learn my tastes. My sister and I have very similar tastes in color, but very different in style, and Mom generally nailed both color and style for each of us, because she worked at it.
Like Dad, Mom enjoyed games and loved to laugh. Her favorite TV shows were Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. She loved to play word games, card games, and board games, and liked learning new games until the dementia made it too difficult. She tried to look at life through a lens of optimism and good humor. One friend told us that, as a newly appointed missionary, they had asked several missionary women for advice. Mom’s advice: Find something to laugh at every day.
And, of course, Mom loved music, especially singing and playing the piano. She really inspired my interest in both and taught me much, although she refused to be my formal piano teacher. Probably wise, given my personality. We did not sing together often, but it was always a joy when there was an opportunity. In her final week of life, she was bedridden, but we have a recording of her singing Amazing Grace with a couple of visitors, her voice still strong and beautiful raised in praise even in the last days.
I miss my mom, but I am so deeply grateful for the legacy of faith, the patient love, and the practical skills she left us.

Kindness

Mary Elaine CaliffLeave a comment

People can be difficult to deal with. We all have rough edges. That, I feel, is one of the realities that I constantly come back to, whether it’s with students, employees, my managers, co-workers, friends, or family. People can be challenging.

But here’s the most important thing I’ve learned about that reality: those people are dealing with challenges of their own.

We live in a broken world, and life is hard. We usually don’t know everything that’s going on in other people’s lives. Any time I find myself in a deeper conversation with someone I don’t know well, I learn that they are facing hard things: illness, grief, financial hardship, broken relationships, abuse, or something else I hadn’t known about.

In my own tight circle over the last few years, there have been deaths due to cancer and dementia, other people dealing with cancer, serious mental illness, a dear friend who is dealing with her husband in the late stages of early-onset Parkinson’s, a colleague who lost her brother unexpectedly, then her mother after multiple health challenges, and also had a granddaughter going through treatment for leukemia, people who have lost jobs despite or because of trying to do the right things, people struggling with addiction, and several people dealing with childhood trauma. 

I could go on, but the point is that life can be hard, and the people around us are dealing with life’s challenges.

So what are we, as Christians, supposed to do about that?

We’re supposed to be kind.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, Colossians 3:12

Paul goes on to discuss bearing with one another and forgiving one another, which may focus on our relationships within the body of Christ. However, these character traits of compassion, kindness, humility, and patience are not something to turn on only when dealing with other Christ-followers. They should be who we are all the time. Jesus made that point in his story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan man had no reason to help the injured Jew: quite the opposite within the culture. Jesus is clearly calling us to be that neighbor. As Paul says, 

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:10

Yes, we do good especially to our fellow believers, but first it says to everyone. I would also point out that some of the people around you may also be believers who just don’t happen to attend your church. While working at a public university, I was surprised by the number of colleagues whom I eventually discovered were faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

So when a colleague is crabby, instead of snapping back, listen and look for something kind to do for them. When an employee isn’t carrying their share of the workload, don’t just assume they’re lazy. Perhaps they are, but perhaps they’re dealing with an illness or other circumstances. We shouldn’t pry, but we can ask if there’s anything they need to be successful, and we can listen to the answer.

We can always offer praise in public and make sure that criticism is offered in private and constructively. We can work to limit our own grumpiness to a select circle of confidants and pour out our troubles to God and those confidants. We can work to be quick to listen. We can look for small ways to offer a bit of cheer and brightness to those around us.

Most of all, we can assume that those around us have their own private struggles and challenges, and whatever is going on is likely not about us. We can (and should) make the effort to put it aside, give it to God, and try to be kind.

This kindness is somewhat anti-cultural, especially in the United States, where we are encouraged to stand on our two feet, defend our personal rights, and value independence above all. And it’s becoming more anti-cultural at the moment, with “empathy” getting a bad name among some who call themselves Christian and the apparent labeling of attempts to help people as “woke.” 

But the reality is that the Bible is pretty clear on this topic. Jesus helped people, including obvious sinners, and primarily condemned the self-righteous religious leaders of the day. In the rest of the New Testament, there are repeated calls from Paul, John, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews to do good, to help people, and to be kind and gentle. Even in the Old Testament, part of the call to God’s chosen is to treat strangers and the poor well and to be kind.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Kindness is not easy. It is very human to be self-centered and self-protective. Kindness is, however, a command from God, not just to our own people, but to everyone. If we claim Christ, we must work to be kind.

Photo by Simon Ray on Unsplash