It's my Mom's birthday today. To give you an idea how incredible my mother is, I want to share something I wrote for her on Mother's Day. It's a dim reflection of the person she is.
I was better at Mother’s Day when I was seven.
It was easier when I didn’t know about the dishes she would have to clean after I made her breakfast in bed.
It was easier when I didn’t know that the sweater was the wrong size and the earrings weren’t her style.
It was easier when I didn’t realize that the flowers wouldn’t grow in this climate.
It was easier when I didn’t know that she didn’t need a new blender
It was easier when I didn’t realize she used the gift card to buy me a birthday present.
It was easier when all I knew was that she loved me and liked to rub sparkly cards on her face.
It was easier when I didn’t realize everything she had given me.
She gave me her body for nine months.
She gave me her sore back and spreading hips.
She poured her life onto a cluster of cells and made Me.
She gave me my name.
She gave me my smile and my eyes.
She gave me my sense of humor.
She gave me love, grace, and mercy every day of my life.
She gave me a thousand prayers.
She gave me a million tears.
She gave me a perfect body and an innocent mind and then watched as I, by accident and by design, covered it with marks.
She bears each scar on her heart.
I have come to realize that no one will ever understand the self-sacrificing love of Christ the way your mother will.
In wonder and delight she created you. In pain and sorrow she brought you into the world, never knowing if you would love her back. Knowing that one day you would hurt her. One day you would hate her and throw evil, malicious words at her,
…and she chose to create you anyway.
My mother tells me of marveling over the perfection my new-born skin, of mourning over each scar that would one day find its home there.
You see, in love she gave me perfection and then gave me the power to mar it.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! -Luke 13:35
It was easier when I was seven, when I didn’t realize how pitiful my sparkly card and pot of violets were in comparison.
Knowing what I know now, what can I possible give her?
How can I honor her fitly with 26 days when she’s given me 26 years?
She doesn’t make it easy for me.
“I don’t want anything,” she insists every birthday and Mother’s Day.
(But she does.)
She wants to erase every bad memory I have.
She wants to take every wound from my body and my heart and bear it upon herself.
She wants her grandson to be well.
She wants to sit on the couch and tell stories.
She wants to buy toys and sneak candy.
She wants her daughters in law to love her.
She wants her babies and grandbabies to serve the lord and to respect their father.
She wants to make her home beautiful and fill it with laughter.
She wants me to find a man who loves me.
She wants to play pretend all day and pinochle all night.
She wants to listen to the babble of a houseful of know-it-alls.
She wants her grandbabies to grow up more slowly than her own babies did.
She wants to be loved
She wants to be remembered
Bless you, Mother.
You deserve to be surprised, delighted, and blessed.
You deserve all the days off that you never took.
You deserve every day of my life.
Everything I am, I owe to you.
You gave me form inside you and never stopped shaping me.
I am your gift, may it be an honor to you.
These words seem so small in comparison, like my messy child’s craft or an ill-fitting sweater, but please accept them with all the joy that my simple gifs once brought you.
Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice. --Pro 23:25
by Jon Acuff, author of one of the "Blogs I like" on the right. In addition to my amazing friends and family, God has used Jon, a stranger to help nudge me to this point. If you haven't read his blog,