I know that the parsha this week is taken from Exodus 13. The readings have moved on, but I am stuck in Genesis. The story of Jacob is speaking to me in ways that it never has before. I cannot help thinking of him as I grieve my mother’s passing. In fact, I mention him in her eulogy which I would like to post here today. I do not mind focusing on my Mom today as the Lord commands us to honor our fathers and mothers. In doing so, I feel more closely connected with Israel the patriarch as well.

Eulogy for Geralyn Corder Craver

Most of you here today knew my mother as Geri, though many of you called her Grangeri. Even our pastor called Mom Grangeri which always made her smile. She enjoyed being the community grandmother.

Few of mom’s friends knew that her given name was Geralyn – just Geralyn with no middle name. Few people knew this fact because no one called Mom Geralyn. Mom’s grandfather, Papa, called her Judy because he thought a more fitting name for a little girl. An uncle tried Jenny, I believe. But Geri is what stuck. Everyone called Mom Geri.

There was only exception which I learned about just days before Mom died. Her beloved college roommate Claudette, called to say goodbye over the phone. I could hear Claudette crying and telling Mom over and over, “I love you Gerbo! I love you so much. You have been such a good friend, Gerbo!”

Hard as it was to hear that heart-wrenching farewell, part of me was laughing as well. Growing up Krista and I heard many stories about Claudette and Mom’s adventures in college. I knew that mom used a to straighten Claudette’s long hair on an ironing board – back before the flat iron was invented. I knew that they accidentally set a Christmas tree on fire in their dorm. I knew that Claudette’s father used his status as professor to sneak hamburgers into their room after hours. But I never knew that Claudette called Mom Gerbo. I am left to conclude only Claudette was allowed to call Mom Gerbo.

I always thought Geri was a good name for my mother because it reminded me of the word “cheery” which captures one of her greatest strengths. Mom was a woman of good cheer. Now cheer may sound like a light virtue – not so weighty as justice or integrity; nor as noble as charity. But I would suggest that cheer is, in fact, a manifestation of hope which is one of the three great Christian virtues -Faith, Hope and Love. One of my favorite theologians, Raneiro Cantalamessa describes these virtues as three sisters. Seen from a distance, Faith and Love look like the bigger, older sisters flanking Hope and taking her by the hand. But looking more closely, we see that Hope is the little sister running eagerly ahead, pulling her big sisters behind her – and that is how I see Hope working in Mom’s life.

Without a strong anchor of hope, my mother’s life would have drifted into some very dark waters, pulling me and my sister with her. Hope is the virtue in Mom’s life for which I am most grateful – and even in awe of at times.

The significance of hope in Mom’s life cannot be explained without context. Geri was the only daughter of Gordon and Peggy Corder. Her parents were children of the Great Depression who married young and moved west to the Panhandle from Abilene, Tx. They landed in Denver City Texas, an oil boom town on the stinky, snake-infested, hot and cold, wind-swept plains above the Permian Basin. There my grandfather found a job with Shell Oil and soon became known as mechanical miracle worker. My grandmother became an officer of the bank with only a 10th grade education. My mother found a close-knit community revolving around school and church, and she became the town sweetheart.

Though Mom always wanted a brother or sister, and reminded her parents of this fact every Christmas, that was one wish my grandparents never granted. This was probably because Peggy had a life-threatening heart condition which made pregnancy risky – and Gordon could not tolerate the thought losing his beloved wife. Thus, Mom grew up with the full attention of two loving, working parents and a generous wardrobe budget. My grandfather did love for his girls to look sharp!

One of my favorite stories in this vein involves a trip to a shoe store in the big city of Lubbock. Mom, as you might guess, admired a pair of red dress shoes, so my grandmother asked the shoe salesman to bring out a pair in her size. The salesman tried to persuade Peggy that red shoes were impractical for a teenage girl. What a girl her age needed was a pair of all purpose Oxfords.

Peggy immediately shot back at the salesman, “I had to wear ugly shoes when I was girl and my daughter most certainly will not! “ She left the store in a huff and found another more accommodating place to shop. I am certain Mom went home that day with more than one pair of shoes.

While Krista was here caring for Mom in December we went through old photo albums and were stounded at how many pictures there were of Mom in party dresses! Since our grandparents were strict Church of Christ folk, we have no idea where she wore them. There was no dancing, that is for sure. But it seems Mom’s early social life was full. I thought you all would like to see a short history of how Mom’s excellent taste in fashion developed.

This is a photo of Mom in middle school. I think this is an Easter dress. Church of Christ folk did not observe Easter as a religious holiday, but it was an excellent excuse to buy a new spring dress and hunt eggs.

Another middle school dress. Mom was not yet old enough for gloves.

I have no idea what this occasion was, but it warranted a tiara.

This was a homecoming date. Mom is now in high school and old enough to wear gloves.

This was Mom’s favorite dress ever, worn to a college social.

You might think this is a wedding photo. But no! Just another college social.

Now lest you get the wrong idea, let me state clearly that my grandparents did not spoil Mom though they dressed her well. It was extremely important to my grandfather that his daughter and his granddaughters were soft-spoken, gentle, lady-like and diligent in their duties. Mom made her Daddy proud. She was a good student, well liked, and actively engaged in both school and church. When Mom graduated from Denver City high school, she went on to Abilene Christian College – the first person in her family to attend college.

Mom loved college! She loved both the academics and the social buzz. She loved her roommate Claudette. She also loved her high school sweetheart, Mike Hubbard, and she married him during Christmas break of her sophomore year.

Mike was a year older than mom. He was class president and a football star. As soon as Mike graduated, he was offered a coaching job in Lubbock, so they left Abilene before mom had not finished her degree. I was born soon after they moved to Lubbock and Krista arrived two years later when Dad was in law school.

Mike and Geri seemed like a perfect match – two high school sweethearts living the American dream. But shortly after the move to Lubbock, Mom’s life fell apart. I won’t tell the full story today. Most of you know its general arc. Dad got drunk on his popularity. He started spending recklessly and having affairs. It was a scandal which estranged Mom from many of her old friends.

In an attempt to save face, the pastor from Denver City arranged a new job for Mike in Pasadena. Mom followed with her two girls. It was an expression of irrational hope, this time pulled along by love for she never stopped loving Mike. Dad spent his days coaching and his nights partying while Mom took Krista and me to the beach, to the zoo and even to the rodeo. She threw herself into caring for us girls. She was determined that her girls would experience joy even as her own dreams were crumbling. Eberhard Arnold says that “love is joy in another.” I think that is a beautiful definition, and descriptive of the love Mom knew best. Mom took joy in her girls, and our joy became fuel for her hope.

Eventually, the situation in Pasadena proved impossible. Mom took us girls back to Lubbock and filed for divorce. In the early seventies, it was difficult for a divorcee with practically no employment history to support two children, so Krista and I went to live with Peggy and Gid.

At that point, I think it would have been easy for Mom to give into despair, or to completely disconnect from her past. She was still quite young and very attractive. She told me recently that several married men tried to take advantage of her situation at the time – offering her free rent or free cars in return for certain favors. It was a discouraging, confusing season for Mom, but she held on to hope for a better future. She went back to school. She continued to make the 80-mile drive from Lubbock to Denver City to visit us girls, and sometimes she would take us to Lubbock for the weekend.

It was during one of these weekend visits that Mom met Les, our stepdad at a pizza parlor. I didn’t want a new man in our life, but I could see that Mom was happy in a way that I could hardly remember. One night on a visit to Lubbock, I remember mom jumping on the bed with us girls and laughing until our sides hurt. To see Mom with that much joy was a little piece of heaven to me – because just as her hope was tied to us girls, my hope was tied to her joy.

When Mom married Les, her life changed in many ways. For starters, It brought three stepchildren into her life, whom she grew to love. Each of my stepsiblings - Candice, Nowlin and Hil - would be a strength and comfort to Mom in different seasons of her life. Marrying my new Dad also meant that Krista and I moved back to Lubbock to live with Mom. We had a big brick house with a trampoline – so we didn’t need to jump on beds anymore. And we started attending an Assemblies of God Church where people played instruments, spoke in tongues and raised their hands. That was a big stretch for my Church of Christ grandparents and a huge turning point in my own life.

One of the joys this new season brought was travel. Not long after Mom remarried, she and Dad went on a trip to Israel. This was one of the highlights of her life. Later they would travel to Hawaii, Mexico and across the US, but Israel held a special place in their hearts, as did the mountains of New Mexico.

A few years after Mom and Dad married, Les decided to sell his business. He moved our family to Angel Fire, NM simply because it was beautiful. He bought us a house on an unfinished golf course where we could look out at the mountains, knowing there was not a soul for miles in view.

That year in the mountains was a magical season - an extended vacation with just the four of us and the beauty of nature. Each of us would look back on that year as a window of grace and joy, even though it was in Angel Fire that another tragedy stuck Mom.

On one of our first skiing expeditions, Mom had trouble getting off the lift. She slid backwards and the chair hit her back. Mom had always suffered from a mild case of scoliosis, but this injury triggered a cascade of problems. First came a surgery which resulted in a lifetime of chronic nerve pain. Then she developed severe arthritis in her joints which limited her mobility. She had excruciating headaches and kidney cancer, and little by little she lost her ability to live on her own.

When Dad died in 2006, we realized Mom would not be safe living alone – and we feared she would be lonely as well. Thomas already had his eye on a new house going up on MLK Blvd. There was a small, 2-bedroom house behind the main house. We thought the idea of a brand-new home close to us would appeal to Mom eventually, though we knew it would be hard for her to leave her home on Penny Creek. So we took Mom to look at the property, hoping the idea of moving in with us might come naturally. However, John was four years old at the time, and we had made the mistake of confiding our hopes to the children. John took his grandmother by the hand, marched her to the back and said proudly, “This is your new home!!”

How could she refuse?

Mom lived with us for the last 17 years of her life. She loved being close to her grandkids, and she was overjoyed when Clara was born. She had a new baby to hold – and to dress! Mom loved indulging the kids with popsicles and letting them watch cartoons or River Monsters on her TV. She loved listening when Noah came to her house to practice guitar. It made her day when Clara would play on her ipad in her room. Mom cherished watching the older kids date and get married. She even got to know some of her great grandchildren. She loved living in community here at CTR. She loved sharing life with Micah and the Walls. But she always wanted to do more.

She never stopped hoping for the day when she would get better – when the doctors would fix her problems – when she would get stronger so she could go to Turkey or visit Krista. She wanted to watch Clara compete at Junior Olympics. She wanted to finish her needle point. She wanted to teach children’s Sunday school again. But pain prevented her from doing many of the things which brought her joy and gave her a sense of meaning.

For many years Mom persisted in a vague belief that someday these things would get better if only she pushed harder, or found the right doctor, or if we planned creatively enough. Honestly, it was hard for me to watch Mom hold on to these hopes because I knew they were unrealistic and as the proverb says, “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick.”

Certainly, Mom struggled with discouragement and dark thoughts. About once each year she would break down crying in frustration. But Mom never lost her interest in life or the joy that small things like ice cream and new clothes could bring. More importantly, she never lost her joy in others, and this is what I believe enabled her to remain a woman of good cheer – a woman who spoke kindly and graciously to others, even in the midst of pain – a woman who looked forward to visitors and hearing their stories. She never lost hope that there was something worth living for.

A little more than two years ago, the quality of Mom’s hope changed in a significant way. The event which precipitated this change was yet another hard blow. Mom’s implanted pain pump needed replacing. The procedure was supposed to be a simple outpatient operation. But things did not go as planned. The surgical site became infected. A second surgery was required. Her pain was mismanaged, and she woke up from anesthesia with amnesia.

Though she never forgot who I was, she did not remember that her parents had died. When I had to tell her why they could not come to the hospital, she wept bitter tears. When she asked about Les, I had to tell her that he had also died, and once again she grieved like I had never seen her grieve. She remembered, Krista, but not the grandchildren. She did not remember where she lived, so she was stunned when we drove her up to the house! She could not believe she lived in a mansion like this.

Slowly her memory came back, as did some of her strength. One Sunday not long after her release from the hospital, Mom was able to go to Hope Chapel. During worship, she had a vision of Jesus – a full sensory vision which completely exhilarated her. In the vision she saw Jesus walking toward her. She felt completely loved and at peace in His presence. Jesus spoke to her saying, “You will walk again, but not now.” Mom knew that meant she would be made whole in heaven. She would not be healed in this life – but in eternity she would do all the things she had missed out on earth and many more besides.

Recently, I was reading the end of Genesis, and I came upon a story which I had never noticed before. Jacob had just arrived in the land of Egypt along with his sons and grandchildren. He was finally reunited with his favorite son Joseph whom he believed to be dead. And while it was a great joy for Jacob to see Joseph, by this time his life had been filled with sorrows. He had lost his beloved wife Rachel. Some of his sons had acted recklessly, violently, and even treacherously. He was forced to leave the land God promised him because of a famine. And he had grown old.

When Joseph introduced his father to Pharaoh, this is what Jacob said, “The years of my living abroad are 130; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their living abroad.” So Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from his presence.

I find this passage fascinating because it is clear that Jacob, at the end of his life, was weary. Perhaps he even felt defeated. It seems that in his own eyes, he saw himself a lesser man than either Abraham or Isaac. It is clear that Jacob had no idea how important he was in God’s eyes. He did not live to know that people all over the world and for millennia to come would refer to the LORD as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He did not understand that an entire nation would be called by his new name, Israel. Jacob could never have imagined what John the Revelator saw. He could not have guessed that names of his sons, even the scoundrels, would be emblazoned in the foundations of the heavenly city. He could not fathom the honor for which God had chosen him. At the end of Genesis, Jacob was simply tired, grief-worn, old man.

Of course now Jacob’s faith has now become sight, and the reality far outshines the hope!

In the same way, I believe my mother’s hope has become reality. Her life, like Jacob’s, was full of disappointment and sorrow. But now I believe Mom is leaping like she has never leapt before. She knows love like she has never felt it before. She sees herself and she knows others in the light of perfect love. I believe she is dressed more gloriously than she could ever imagine – and I believe my grandfather’s jaw is dropping at the sight of his little girl.

Mom’s hope has now become reality – and she is seeing the fruit of her hope through the eyes of her Lord.

My Mother and Jacob - One Last Time

What If?

The God of Bethel