My Mom the Teacher

Kathleen Virginia Casey Elders

July 4, 1950 - October 30, 2014

My mom, Mama, died at 2:55am last Thursday morning.  She found out in late July that she had cancer.  And that it was bad.  And that there was little hope of surviving it.  By the time she went to the doctor, what started as ovarian cancer had spread to other parts of her body, including her lungs, which is what ultimately took her so quickly from the time of her diagnosis.

I won't go into the details of the last 22 years of my mom's life here.  She and my dad divorced in 1992-3 when I was 19 years old.  Here's what I primarily tell people about my mom: She taught her four sons to know and love Jesus.  She was faithful and obedient to the highest call God gives mothers.

Deuteronomy 6:4-8  "Listen, O Israel!  The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength  6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today  7 Repeat them again and again to your children.  Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.  8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.  9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

She taught us, as well as countless other children at Poplar Springs Baptist Church in Lavonia, GA, many things I used to take for granted.  Back then, as a traditional Southern Baptist Church, we went to church on Sunday mornings at 10am for Sunday School, 11am for worship, and then again at 6pm for Discipleship Training, and 7pm for worship.  Yep, we spent 4 hours at church every Sunday, and I never thought it was too much.  For several years of my childhood, Mama was my Discipleship Training teacher.  During those classes, I learned the 39 Books of the Old Testament, the 27 Books of the New Testament, the Ten Commandments, the Eight Beatitudes, and the Twelve Disciples.  I remember her teaching us the Books of the Bible 5 at a time: "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.  Again - Genesis, Exodus . . ."  She taught us the Twelve Disciples 4 at a time: "Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John. Again - Andrew, Simon Peter . . ."  I don't know why she started with Andrew when Scripture starts with Simon Peter, but that's still the way I say them - Andrew first.

As for the Books of the Bible, it helped that my church also did the "Bible Drill," where students stand holding their closed Bible in front of them, and the teacher calls out a Bible verse.  The first person to find it steps forward and reads it.  I loved the competition.

As I said, I used to take all those lists for granted.  I thought it was normal for every Christian to know them.  I learned otherwise as I grew up.  When I took my first youth ministry position and started teaching students regularly, I saw that most church kids not only don't KNOW the Books of the Bible, but they aren't even FAMILIAR with them.  That was in 1997, and since then, at every church I've served, I've had a standing deal with my youth: the first one to come to me and recite all 66 Books of the Bible will receive SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY (it has changed through the years).  To this day, nobody has ever done it.  Learning 66 things in order isn't impossible, so the reason has been that nobody has CARED to do it.  I'm glad my mom taught me before I reached an age that I didn't care.

Then I had another eye-opener.  At Erskine Theological Seminary, one of the schools I attended for my Masters, I had to take a Bible Survey course.  It was a semester-long overview of the entire Bible.  I loved it, while most students didn't.  Why did I love it?  Because I already knew a lot of the stuff we were tested on, and I made an easy A.  Other students spent long hours trying to memorize all the things I learned as a child.  During tests, I was always the first student finished.  It was honestly the first and last class in my seminary education that I felt was remedial.  When my friends in the class asked me how I knew all that stuff so easily, I told them about my mom.  I was shocked that so many pastors and pastors-to-be didn't know these BASICS.

Aside from the lists, Mama taught my brothers and me what it means to know who God is, how He works, and what He wants.  She made Bible stories come to life, and I can still remember the characters she drew and cut out to use on her flannel board to teach us Biblical truths.  I'm trying to pass on what I learned from her to my 3-year old, and in the future, to our 1-month old.  I cared that she taught us all those things way back then, but the older I get, the more I care and the more it means to me.  Especially this week.