Mom

***Due to recent events in our lives, the publishing of this Mother's Day post is belated.  My apologies.***

There are some that dislike Mother's Day and holidays like these because they say it's all about commercialism.  Hogwash.  I love Mother's Day (and celebrations in general).  There's a lot in life to celebrate and of those things is certainly our moms (I can say that with much more certainty now that I am a mom ;)).

 "Honor her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."  Proverbs 31:31

When I think of my mom I am often taken back and forth between childhood memories (toting my friends and I to the pool and getting us frozen treats during adult swim, leading games for my friends and I at my birthday parties, fixing Jarod and I yogurt and oranges for after school snacks, volunteering at school events, reminding me to cross my legs at band concerts, taking Jarod & I to Chuck E Cheese after report cards, buying me awesome presents, etc, etc), and her service to me at current (listening to my day as I scrub dishes and babysitting my kids - a lot, etc, etc). 

My Mom is one of the most faithful women I know.  At 19 she married my Dad and has loved, served and helped him til this day.  I have complete confidence she will continue to.  *After this weekend, we are all even more grateful to be experiencing this and that I can leave that line in this post.  Not too many years later she had my brother, and then me (the fact that they stopped having kids after that means I was either really awesome or really not so awesome.  I'm going with really awesome). 


She has always been there, ready to nurture, protect, and help us as best she could since she knew we were in her womb - avoiding things like diet coke and all other loves that might have poorly impacted our growth, development, and souls. 

She chose to pursue a career that would serve her husband and family and once she had one, she put her career on hold to give us the best childhood and prepare us for the best adulthood she could.  I can't say that I know how difficult this was because I'm pretty sure being a stay at home mom in this day in age doesn't carry quite the same stigma that it did then, when feminism seemingly included asserting yourself in the workforce.

I don't remember a day not knowing the love of God and I'm pretty sure that's because of my Mom and Dad's love for Him and the way their faith was a reality.  I'm also fairly certain that my life has been so blessed (and not primarily in a physical sense as much as a deep down joy sense) because of my Mom's many, many, many, many, many, many, MANY prayers for me and my friends (and her intuition!).  I'm pretty thankful, too, that she and my Dad even prayed for my husband on her wedding day because I think he's pretty awesome :)

My Mom wasn't always a mom.  Once she was able to pursue her days the way she wanted, but thankfully one of the things she wanted to pursue was a family.  More thankfully, because of God's great love for us all, she didn't pursue just any type of family, she pursued Him and let Him define how our family would look.  We don't have a perfect family, but it's perfect in the sense that God created it and is holding it together and I can say without reservation it is awesome and there couldn't be a better one for me! 

So, Mom...

I am so thankful God gave me you!  You are amazing.  Faithful. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you for loving and trusting Jesus and revealing His preciousness to me.  Thank you for finding your treasure in Him so that you could lay down the lesser treasures of this world to serve Dad, raise Jarod and I, to bless us, and to bless our friends.  Thank you for resting in His time and spending so much of it with us, reading to us, planning fun for us, praying for us, teaching us, driving us, cheering for us, waiting for us, serving us, and most of all, hanging out with us.  Thank you for learning from the Word and for teaching me from it.  Thank you for marrying Dad!!!  Thank you for being passionate about serving our family and for providing me a vision and tools for loving and serving my own.   Thank you for expressing that same love and service to my kids.  My world, the world, is truly a better place because of you.

I love you, Mom!

Oh, and your an unbelievable grandma!  But I think the kids have already broadcasted that :)