It is the end of Teacher Appreciation Week and the weekend we celebrate Mother’s Day; In Thelma Irene Ballard Norfleet Carrow, I have both. My mother was my first teacher. She taught me all those important firsts that most moms do – to say please and thank you, tie my shoelaces, recite my ABCs … say my prayers aloud at night. I look back on my childhood and I have the fondest memories of having been reared by a woman who was a natural born teacher. I only had to look across the dinner table to learn from a master on how to live a purpose-filled life.
My mom was in her early 20s when she decided that ironing handkerchiefs at the local cleaners was not going to be her life’s work. She had a calling to teach and enrolled in Livingstone College where she graduated four years later with a teaching degree. Although my mom taught special education my entire life, her teaching credentials are not what I appreciate most about my mother. It’s her passion for her calling.
I remember when she moved from her New York hometown to Kinston, NC after retiring there with her husband, who much to our sadness, passed away three weeks later. My mom was in her mid-60s and started teaching adult education reading classes part-time. Amazingly, only a few months short of being 86-years-old, she is still fulfilling her God-inspired purpose. As an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, my mother uses her gift to lead a Monday afternoon Bible Class, primarily made up of retired members of the Kinston, N.C.-based church she serves. She founded the Bible Class with less than four members and now facilitates a group of men and women more than five times that size.
Thelma Irene has modeled for me, my sister and brother what it means to accept and walk in God’s purpose for your life. She uses the gift God gave to her to bring light into darkness.
When I was a little girl, she’s the one who taught me the words to “This little light of mine.” My favorite verse was “Don’t hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m going to let it shine.” I thought it was fun to shout the word “No!” but I had no idea what the phrase “hide it under a bushel” meant until much later in life. I’m so glad my mother has never tried to dim her light, her gift or her faith. My mom has taught me not to dim mine either. It’s just one of the many joy-filled lessons I learned by her example.
Happy Mother’s Day to the best teacher I know.
Joyfully,
Katrina
Katrina
