I’m out of words before I start writing, because how do you say thank you to someone who has shaped your life, patiently taught you right from wrong, and cared for you selflessly for longer than you can remember?
When I look at my mom, I see someone who operates out of genuine love. Someone who has made me love her because of her love for me, and who has my respect, not merely because of her position as my mother, but because she has earned it by being my guide, disciplinarian, and teacher, and by striving daily with His strength to live her life for the Lord. Someone who has shaped my fear of God from the time I was a child by lovingly placing in my heart a similar fear for her discipline and displeasure when I did something wrong. Someone who has daily worked and sacrificed her time, energy, and body to help her husband provide for their family and to make their home a refuge from the world. Someone who isn’t perfect, but in whom I can see spiritual growth over the years as a result of her faithful striving to put the Lord first in her day and her life. Someone who is my favorite person with whom to go shopping. Someone who has served the Lord faithfully in His strength, knowing that her own righteousness is as filthy rags. Someone whose utmost desire for me and her other children is for us to spend time daily with God. There is nothing in her training of me that she has not placed more emphasis on than the daily discipline of meeting with God, and there is nothing that she has taught me that I treasure more than this one lesson. And because of her daily example, her teaching carries weight. Her words are not just puffs of smoke – they are apples of gold in settings of silver. 90% of what she has taught me has been by example, and the other 10% I pay careful attention to and tuck away in my heart because of that example. I am oh-so-grateful that the Lord has fulfilled the desires of my mom’s heart and made her the Godly mother that she has been to me, and I hope that He will make me into such a wise, godly mother if I ever am one.
I don’t say it or show it enough, but I love you, Mommy.
You’re swell.
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