Marcus Redding’s Mother-In-Law

“Lauren…are you home?” Marcus noticed her car in the parking lot but she wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. He walked down the hall, “Lauren?” He peeked into the bedroom and saw her curled up on the bed, still with her work clothes on, her long blond hair all messed up. She was crying. Half-worried, half-puzzled Marcus sat on the bed and put his hand on her shoulder. “Lauren, what’s wrong?” She sniffed and sat up. He grabbed her a couple Kleenex and she wiped her eyes. She sat still, looking down at the wet Kleenex in her hands. After a minute she looked up at Marcus, “I feel so bad for her. She’s so lonely.”

Her mom’s name was Ruth. Her dad’s name was Cal. He was in pharmaceutical sales—a “drug rep”—and he traveled a lot. Since Cal had a good paying job, Ruth could stay home with the kids, something she always dreamed of. One day he came home and said he would be gone for a couple weeks. He never came back. Ruth later found out he met a pretty young nurse at a doctor’s office in Plano.

Ruth was 28. Lauren was 7. Eddie was 10. She had to go to work. They hired her to wait tables at Cracker Barrel. Ruth worked hard, she was smart, and people liked her. She worked her way up to manager. She tried to fix her schedule so she could get home before the kids got home from school. It didn’t always work that way, but she tried.

Early on she decided that whatever else she lost, she was not going to lose her children to the world. With God’s help she would raise Lauren and Eddie with rock-solid faith. So every day, without exception, she talked to them about the Bible. Every day, without exception, she prayed for them and with them. Every Sunday, without exception, they went to worship services and stayed close to their brothers and sisters in Christ. In this way, both kids grew up devoted to the Lord, full of God’s word, full of love for God and others.

But great faith doesn’t make a hard life easy. Ruth struggled. Money was tight. They scraped by. She got so tired. Working. Looking after the kids. Taking care of the house. All on her own. And like every woman Ruth longed for attention and affection. Single men (and some married men) flirted with her at the restaurant. But she had decided long ago she would not even consider a relationship until the kids were grown. The hardest thing was seeing happy young families at church with loving and involved fathers. The first scripture Lauren every learned by heart was the one her mother always quoted, usually at about 10:30 at night when she tucked the kids into bed. It was John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

This afternoon Lauren had been on the phone with her mom. Ruth started to cry as she talked about some of her regular customers, an older couple that had been married fifty years. They celebrated their anniversary last week with a bunch of family and grandkids. Lauren felt for her mom but she wanted to help her be strong. “Mom…mom…John 16:33.” Ruth took a deep breath and recited the verse, word for word, with a few sobs for punctuation. “Thanks for talking to me, honey. I feel better.” Lauren hung up the phone just before Marcus walked in.

Marcus sat on the bed a while. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Ruth’s number. She picked up after two rings. “Ruth, it’s Marcus. If it wasn’t for you raising Lauren to be faithful, I would be lost.”