The Audacious Molly Bruno

My family tree is deeply rooted in Italy, but I didn't grow up in Naples crushing grapes with my feet. I'm a third-generation American who grew up walking the concrete of New York City, surrounded by the love of a robust Italian-American family—and lots and lots of food, including homemade meatballs.

When I was a child, moms did most of the cooking. This could be why so many mothering metaphors relate to food items. Think about two of the most spoken: "as homemade as apple pie" and "that's chicken soup for the soul." Apple pie is basic and sweet. Chicken soup is warm and comforting. Mom stuff.

However, when I think of my mother, I envision hot, juicy meatballs rolling around in a huge pot filled with bubbling tomato sauce and Italian sausage. My mother, Molly Bruno, was the Michelangelo of meatball making. Just thinking of the aroma that used to waft from her meatballs makes my mouth water. As an Italian-American, I believe that the meatball is a radically underappreciated food. Why? Meatballs take a lot of work and time.

A great meatball is created from a bunch of ingredients—and so is a person, which is why my metaphor holds together. It's like a potter putting the clay on a wheel to form it into something better than just a lump of clay. God transforms us from what we were and makes us into something better and far more desirable to those around us.

So, how do you make a meatball, metaphorically speaking? It's not rocket science, but it does take some know-how.

Step One

You must soften the meat. This may seem like a brutal process to an inexperienced observer—to crush and grind the meat—but it's the only way to make it pliable enough to form a meatball. Softening it so that it can be made into something new is the whole point.

God does the same thing with our hearts. We know we feel dead inside. Our hearts are like stone. He gives us new hearts. He softens them, and the process, though crushing at times, transforms us into new creatures.

Step Two

A meatball must be seasoned, and salt is the primary seasoning. I don't know why salt gets first place, but it does. A meatball without salt is a meatball without flavor. And if a meatball has no flavor, what good is it?

Salt gets little respect in the seasoning world. In recent decades, we've discovered how to mine salt inexpensively, which is why you never see a salt charge on a restaurant menu.

But salt wasn't always so easy to get. Throughout history, it was so expensive to mine that people referred to it as "white gold."1 Some historians tell us that Roman soldiers were paid in salt. The word salary is actually derived from the Latin word salarium, which means payment in salt.2

In the Old Testament, salt was used to seal covenants. God gave the "kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt" (2 Chron. 13:5). God also required salt in some offerings: "Every offering must be seasoned with salt, because the salt is a reminder of God's covenant" (Lev. 2:13 TLB).

Salt is a reminder of God's covenant? That's what Scripture says. And Christians are the "salt of the earth"? That's what Jesus said.

Our lives are the salt reminding the world around us that Jesus offered Himself as our offering to God. Christians who have been given and have received new hearts represent a new covenant that began with the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. We are the salt that reminds the world that God is willing to forgive, forget, and welcome them into His forever family. And to resurrect us when we die.

A meatball without salt is tasteless, and so is the world without the Body of Christ. Jesus was saying something amazing, priceless, and beyond human comprehension when He told His followers, "You are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13).

Step Three

But meat and salt do not a meatball make. The meatball maker must add extra ingredients (milk, bread, eggs) to keep a meatball pliable—and to keep it from falling apart when it hits the hot oil.

God gives us new hearts with new life, and then His plan is to make us look like His Beloved Son, Jesus. When God works to form us into the image of His Son, He adds the ingredients we need to keep us soft hearted, and He adds ingredients that will keep us from falling apart when life gets, well, hot: "When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze" (Isa. 43:2).

We cannot make it through the troubles of life on mental discipline alone. We need something formed within us, something that becomes part of who we are in our inner being. We need something new, miraculous, and holy. We need something that will help others see Jesus walking with us and working in us so that we begin to resemble who He is. We need the Holy Spirit. We need what He cultivates in us: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Gal. 5:22–23).

Step Four

Next, the meatball maker works all the ingredients together until the mixture is ready to be formed into a meatball. A genuine meatball maker knows mixing the meatball is a hands-on process. Our heavenly Father is a hands-on loving Father with every one of His children.

Since each of us is an original creation of God, He's hands-on from the moment He gives us life in the womb. King David acknowledged this, saying, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.…My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body" (Ps. 139:13, 15–16).

But we also learn from David that God is with us for more than just the moments of our creation. In the same psalm, David described God's hands-on involvement in his daily life when he said to God, "You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely" (Ps. 139:1–4 NLT).

Our Creator knows us better than we know ourselves. David explained this in Psalm 139:7: "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?"

When God created me, He saw me writing this book. When He created you, He saw you reading it today. In Psalm 139:16, David reminded us of God's hands-on involvement in every aspect of every person's life: "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." God is the original hands-on Creator. His hands never leave us. "Your right hand will hold me fast" (Ps. 139:10).

Step Five

At this stage of the meatball-making process, it's time to apply the heat and the oil. A great meatball is soft inside and firm on the outside. The exterior crust is necessary or the meatball will simply disappear into the sauce.

One of my favorite Bible stories is that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These three men faced a literal fire because they would not bow down and worship the golden image King Nebuchadnezzar had made.

I love the all-or-nothing attitude of these men when they said, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it…and…even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (Dan. 3:17–18).

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were my childhood superheroes. Stop and think about all the people who did bow down to the golden image even though they knew they were compromising God's law. Almost everyone compromised their commitment to God. These cowering people saw God greatly honor and deliver the three men who stood their ground.

But by no means did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walk through the hot fire alone. Jesus was there walking in the fire with them. King Nebuchadnezzar saw Him with his own eyes. And when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego exited the fire at the king's command, "The fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them" (Dan. 3:27).

People who can take the heat are people who are not afraid of the future because they know that God already has a plan in place for every day of their lives. Jesus told us that the world would hate us because He has chosen us, and because we love Him (John 15:18–19). He wants us to persevere and stand our ground—even when life gets hot—and He is with us every step of the way. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

Step Six

Finally, although a meatball is in the sauce, it is not of the sauce. It never loses its separate identity. It never becomes the sauce, no matter how much the sauce surrounds it. The meatball maker never intends for the meatball to give up its new and unique identity and be lost in the sauce.

When God creates a new heart in us, we take on a new and eternal identity, even while we continue to live in the same place we've always lived. We are in the world but we are not of the world. The apostle Paul explains it this way: "Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" (2 Cor. 5:17 NLT). "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom. 12:2).

Something about Molly

For most of my adult life, people have been encouraging me to write a book about Mom. She was hilarious, filled with God's power and love. She prayed for people and got answers to her prayers. She was a nuclear-powered witnessing machine.

Everyone (and I mean everyone) who met my mother fell in love with her. I'm still, two years after her death, repeatedly told how blessed I was to have her.

But lots of people have mothers their friends adore. They don't necessarily write books about them. So why am I writing one? What changed? Well, the world did. These days, more women, for a variety of reasons, are focusing less on careers and more on the basics of being someone's mother.3 And many of them have no personal example to follow. Their moms were career-minded mothers who believed prioritizing the roles of a wife and mother was not necessary. So they didn't. And now, the daughters of those mothers have become wives and mothers. And they're desperately trying to figure out how to do it right.

How do I know this? The Internet. A quick review of the top ten blogs4 written by and for women reveals that the focus is on traditional subject matter: marriage, childbirth, parenting, cooking, fashion, and crafts. Conduct an Internet search for the word mentor and you'll discover that the business world is adopting the process God created for women all along: find someone who has been there and done that, listen to their advice, and follow that person's example (Titus 2:4).

God created the mentoring system and has kept it in place for thousands of years. Jesus said that His life on earth was an example for us to follow (John 13:15). The apostle Paul took it a step further when he wrote, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1).

In that spirit, I offer my mother's life as an example for younger women to follow. She was, as I wrote this, ninety-two years old, so almost anyone who picks up this book is a younger person.

Why the Church Is on the Outs

Traditionally, the church is the place where women have been more likely to find older, godly mentors who will obey God's call to be an example to others. However, our daughters and granddaughters (and their husbands and children) are leaving the organized church in droves. Barna research confirms "nearly six in ten [59 percent] of young people who grow up in Christian churches end up walking away from either their faith or from the institutional church at some point in their first decade of adult life."5

Why the mass exodus? The answer may surprise you. The Barna report states, "When comparing twenty-somethings who remained active in their faith beyond high school and twenty-somethings who dropped out of church, the study uncovered a significant difference between the two: those who stay were twice as likely to have a close personal friendship with an adult inside the church. Seven out of ten Millennials who dropped out of church did not have a close friendship with an adult and nearly nine out of ten never had a mentor at the church."6 The Barna study proves that older people mentoring younger generations is a simple system created by a God who knows what works with people and why.

The more the world seems out of control, the more people are desperate to connect with someone who has lived life with a strong and steady faith. My mother was such a person. Her anecdotes about answers to prayer and her unmitigated witnessing wherever she went so charmed a friend of mine that she told her employers, who are movie producers, about Mom. They were interested in speaking to Mom because they were creating a character in their next movie—Miss Clara—who is an older, praying woman who mentors a younger woman. We set up a Skype session with Mom and the movie producers. They used her life as a character study for their movie character.

Mom loved talking to people who wanted to talk to her about Jesus. Anything about her life that may cause another person to love God more was her primary goal before she saw Jesus. And seeing Jesus was Molly Bruno's ultimate goal. That is another reason I chose to write this book when I did. I wanted Mom to read it before she saw Jesus.

And I want you to read it before you see Him too.