Tribute to a Godly Mother
John 6:40P. G. Mathew | Tuesday, January 26, 1999
Copyright © 1999, P. G. Mathew
This text was written and presented by Pastor P. G. Mathew on the occasion of his mother’s funeral in Hackensack, New Jersey, on January 26, 1999, at 10:30 A.M. It has been compiled here as an ongoing testimony to the faithfulness of our great God and Savior and as a tribute to the godly life and witness of Christ’s servant, Thandalathu Aleyamma Varghese.
Hackensack, New Jersey
January 26, 1999
10:30 A.M.
Dear family, friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ: Greetings!
Our dearest mother, Aleyamma, was born at Thandalathu in Muthukulam in Kerala State in India. Although our mother was born into a rich, aristocratic family, her father, a lay minister in the Marthoma Orthodox Church, did not spoil her but brought her up in the fear of God. In her home there was a chapel where her father regularly prayed and read the Scriptures. In those days girls were not permitted to read the Euangelion, but our mother, being of an enlightened mind, did not pay any attention to such restrictions. She read the Bible regularly with great delight and spiritual profit.
As a teenager our mother was married to the late Pastor P. C. Varghese, who hailed from an aristocratic Syrian Orthodox family from Pathichira of Mammotil house near Mavelikara in Kerala, India. He was the only son of his father, Cheria Cheriyan.
Soon after her marriage, the young wife had to face severe economic downturns. She and her husband endured this serious hardship with dignity and grace. This severe trial, being of divine providence, drove our mother to trust in Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior.
In due course our parents left the Syrian Orthodox Church and joined the then-vibrant Pentecostal movement. Our mother was baptized in water as a believer and also in the Holy Spirit. Daily she would pray in the Spirit and speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave her utterance. My own faith in the biblical doctrine of the gifts of the Holy Spirit sprang from observing the practice of these gifts by our parents.
Our mother’s faith in Jesus Christ was not theoretical or detached; it was a living faith in a living Savior. Such dynamic faith produced tremendous works of righteousness. I have never seen such a hardworking person as our mother. Her faith really worked! She endured hardship with great joy. She did not have any “vacations.” Her rest was worship, prayer, singing of hymns and reading the Bible. I often saw her interrupt her work to read the word of God. She would read eagerly, rejoicing and weeping while she read. Then, after prayer, she would go back to do more work.
Our mother’s relationship with Jesus was a living one. Jesus Christ was the Lover of her soul, and she walked with him and talked with him, enjoying sweet communion with him daily. She always prayed with passion, power, understanding, and many tears. Knowing her calling, she regularly engaged in intercession, visitation of the sick, and bearing witness to her Lord at all times to all sorts of people without any fear. She was a woman of great courage who faced every problem with confidence and in complete reliance upon her ever-present Lord.
Our mother knew how to encourage others in distress with the comfort she herself received from Jesus. Once I was sitting in our home, disappointed and sullen. Then I heard these words from my mother: “Son, the Lord will help you and bless you. Trust and you will see.” Her words entered into my soul as the balm of Gilead, and I was instantly healed of my misery. She was prophesying, and her prophecy came true. The Lord helped me greatly through our mother.
Our mother was a holy woman. Truly, she was a saint! While I was a young boy, I would go to bed hearing her prayers. In the morning I needed no alarm clock, for her early morning prayers would wake me up without fail. Our mother also urged me to always study the Bible, especially the book of Proverbs. Whatever I am as a Christian and a minister of the gospel, and whatever success I have had, can be credited, first, to our triune God and, second, to our parents, especially our mother. She was to us a perfect model of piety and godliness.
Our mother delightfully served her husband and loved him dearly. By the grace of God she ministered to him twenty-four hours a day during the last years of his life. She was a woman who was always serving others without paying any attention to herself. Such love is rare indeed in modern times.
Our mother loved us all and pointed us to her greatest treasure: Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. While we were growing up we were fed not only with the milk of her breasts but also with the spiritual milk of the word of God, as Timothy of the New Testament was fed.
During the last few years of her life God graciously gave our mother a time of rest when she came to the United States to live with her daughter in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Many people helped her in her old age, but two people deserve special mention: her daughter Ponnamma Varghese and her grandson Goodwin Varghese. They were always there in her times of great need and she greatly appreciated their sacrificial love for her. May God’s rich blessings rest upon them now and always!
Several years ago, I remember reading two books on how to live a good life and how to die a good death. The thesis of these books is that he who can say “To me to live is Christ” can also say “and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). To die a good death we must live a good life-a life of glorifying God. That is the type of life our mother lived.
Our mother rejoiced in the prospect of going to heaven and meeting with her Lord. She sang about it and prayed about it continually. She was earnestly looking forward to it, for she knew that death is not a loss but a gain; that death is far better; and that to die is to be present with the Lord. She knew that “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
On Saturday, January 23, 1999, at 10:25 A.M. God took our mother to himself. The angels came and brought her perfected spirit to her Master and Lord. Just before she died she was singing hymns she had learned in her younger days-hymns about heaven and the joy of meeting the Lover of her soul. Before she entered into the presence of the Lord she encouraged those with her to love Jesus and serve him faithfully all of their days.
Truly our mother’s death was a good death! It is very important that we pay heed to this veteran soldier of the cross who followed her Master faithfully for about eighty years. Let us love Jesus and serve him faithfully as she did. Let us not love the world or anything in it, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul?
Our dearest mother! You have entered Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have entered his gates with singing, and everlasting joy crowns your head. Gladness and joy have overtaken you, and sorrow and sighing have fled away.
Our most beloved mother! Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow and labor have ended. You are now before the throne of God to serve him always in his temple. He who sits on the throne has already spread his tent over you, and never again will you hunger, never again will you thirst. The Lamb in the center of the throne will be your Shepherd and will lead you to springs of living water. God has wiped away every tear from your eyes. Now your face glows with joy and your eyes sparkle with splendor.
Our dearest mother! You have entered into your eternal rest. And what is that rest? What is that blessing? It is seeing the face of Jesus whom you loved as a little girl and whose Euangelion you cherished in your father’s house.
We grieve today, we will grieve tomorrow, and we will grieve all our days for you, our mother. But we are also glad that you are eternally happy. For you, there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, and no more pain. Soon our own sorrow and pain will also be over. It is only a matter of time, and then we whom you taught to trust in Jesus will join you and your Lord for the everlasting joy and unending celebration of heaven.
We, your children-Kunjappan, Ponnamma, Thampachan, Kunjumon, Kunjumol, Gladys, and Chinnamma-salute you. Your grandchildren salute you. Your great-grandchildren salute you. All your dear friends salute you. We rejoice in your glorious salvation.
Mother, we realize that you have not yet achieved the fullness of redemption because your body is still here. But listen to the Scriptures: “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” Soon the Lord himself will descend from heaven and you, Mother, will also come down with him. He will descend “with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:14, 16-17). And so we shall be with you and the Lord forever.
Dear mother, the fullness of redemption, the redemption of the body, is still awaiting all of us. “Listen. . . in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” The perishable must put on the imperishable and the mortal, immortality. We will each receive a body, imperishable, glorious, immortal, powerful and spiritual, a body like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. For that day you and we wait longingly. On that day this scripture shall receive its final fulfillment: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Then we will shout in complete triumph, “‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 15:51-57). That will be the fullness of our salvation.
Christ kept the law fully and so he gives to all who trust in him his righteousness. Christ died for our sins and so he gives full forgiveness of sins to all who trust in him. Righteousness and forgiveness-these are our needs, and Jesus met those needs for you, Mother, and for us. He will do so also to everyone who trusts in him. Mother, you believed in Christ as a young girl and received this righteousness and forgiveness from Jesus. As a result, you are now able to be in his presence without fear.
The Bible tells us that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy and on his right hand pleasures forevermore. Therefore, Mother, enjoy your reward of salvation with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Enjoy it, together with your husband, Pastor P. C. Varghese, your son-in-law, Pastor C. M. Varghese, and your grandson, Stanley Alexander-all of whom served Christ faithfully and went ahead of you.
We shall see you soon!
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
John 11:25
What about you, dear reader? Are you a godly mother who daily feeds on the heavenly food of the word of God and, in turn, feeds your children the truth which alone is able to make them wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus? Have you repented of your sins and trusted in our only Redeemer and Mediator, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and lives for our justification? Or are you a mother who trusts only in this world and the things of this world (Matt. 13:22, 1 Tim. 6:9-10)? If the latter is true, you can only guide your children to be worldly and to have a form of godliness while denying its power.
Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6-8). My prayer is that you will be a godly mother and that you will raise your children to serve the Lord wholeheartedly all the days of their lives.
(Aleyamma Varghese had a lifelong passion for souls and took every opportunity to speak to others about Jesus Christ, as recounted in this letter from A. J. Varghese, Retired Collector, Alleppy District, Kerala, India.)
Kulanada,
17 – 02 – ’99
Praise the Lord!
Dearly beloved Thampachan and Gladys,
Greetings in the precious name of Jesus.
Hope you had a comfortable and safe journey back to the United States. One family residing at Connecticut gave us information about the “home call” of Ammachi at New Jersey and subsequently we could read the message in Malayala Manorama. God gave her a very long life and in God’s time she was called to her eternal rest.
I am really proud of her concern for the lost souls. One instance always rests in my memory about dear Ammachi. When I came there in 1994 I wanted to go to New Jersey to the house of Sister with whom she was staying. I had only the address which you gave and had to get the help of a distant relative of mine to find the house. We reached there, and after a few minutes she inquired about the young man with me, knowing that he was a staunch Orthodox believer. She started to talk with him about salvation through Jesus Christ, baptism, etc., and the eternal damnation of unbelievers.
Thank God he has called his faithful servant to his presence without allowing her to suffer in this ailing and sickly body any further. We do participate in your grief over the death of dear Ammachi and hope that we will see her again when all the saints are called to meet in the air. We pray for all the surviving members of the family that God may console them.
We do pray for you and your ministry. Kindly remember us also in prayer.
Thinking of you,
With love and regards,
Yours affectionately,
A.J. Varghese
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