Today another Love Inspired author guests. Here’s Merrillee Whren:

“Thank you, Lyn, for inviting me to share on her blog today as I talk about one of the most influential people in my life—my mother.

My mom Gladys Luft went to be with her Lord over twenty-five years ago, but her influence lives to this day. I have many fond memories about this woman of quiet strength. Photographs, memories and the values she instilled in my life are ways that I remember her. One of my fondest memories is of the time she read to my brothers and me before we went to bed when we were small children. My favorite story was Old Bones the Wonder Horse. She gave me the love of stories that ultimately led me to write my own.

She became a wife and mother during the age of June Cleaver from the television show, Leave It To Beaver. Although she didn’t wear pearls to do housework, she often wore her “house dress.” It wasn’t until I was an adult that I would see her wearing pants on a regular basis. Although she had a career as a beautician, when she married and started raising a family, she joined the majority of women of that time who were stay-at-home moms. Home, family and her faith were her priorities.

When I was thirteen, my father had a heart attack. Because of my father’s health, my mother took a job as a receptionist for a beauty shop. When my parents moved, she found work as a clerk in the bakery of a grocery store and finally as a salesperson in ladies’ better dresses in a local department store. She did whatever she had to do in order to benefit her family, even though it may not have been her first choice. Then tragically, she became a widow before my youngest brother graduated from high school.

Although my mother was reserved and often stood in the shadow of her husband, and even her children, she had an inner strength born of her faith that carried her through the difficult times. She always opened her home to a myriad of family and friends who remember her hospitality. She is my heroine because in her quiet way she encouraged me and gave me the confidence to reach for my dreams.

Ashley Hiatt, the heroine of my April book, HOMECOMING BLESSINGS, is also a strong, quiet woman. Against her father’s wishes, she decides to become a teacher on the mission field instead of taking a job with his construction firm. The story begins when she has to return home because of unrest in the country where she works as a missionary. She has to deal with what appears to be her father’s attempt to once again manage her life when he pairs her with Peter Dalton to administer a new mission project. Although she initially resists the idea, she sees God’s calling in her father’s endeavor and signs on with an enthusiasm that makes Peter reexamine everything about his life. Her quiet faith makes him want to be a better person. She also makes him realize, despite his past hurts, that he wants to love again.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of HOMECOMING BLESSINGS and read about a strong woman whose quiet witness is affective in a way she doesn’t anticipate. See how she has the strength to face her own faults and let God lead her in a new direction.”

Thanks for sharing your mother’s story, Merrillee. As we draw closer to Mother’s Day, I want to remind our blog readers that there is still time to request me to send a Mother’s Day card to a special woman in their lives and also to send me a story to post in May about their own mothers, grandmothers, etc.

Each story posted here gives me a lift and I hope it does the same to you all.