Thoughts of my mom

I wrote this on Saturday morning, wanting to post it for Mother's Day but due to a computer malfunction, that did not happen.  Hopefully we can look past it being a day late :-)

This morning I woke up to find my oldest daughter standing over me with a plate of food in her hand.  She had made me breakfast and brought it to me in bed.  Her words were that I deserved breakfast in bed every morning not just on Mother’s Day.  She made my day just a little bit. 

It is in those moments that I realize the job I am doing as a mom and I think I can honestly say I am an excellent mom.  The thing is though that I recognize that I am an excellent mom because I grew up with an excellent mom.  Being a mom is a LOT of work.  Laundry, cleaning, cooking and caring for your kids pretty much consumes the time of a mom. It just does not leave much time for anything else if you want to keep your sanity but somehow my mom did it.  She sang in the church choir, participated in WMU, taught children’s choir, attended bible studies and still had time to take care of us kids while still making time to entertain those who came to visit.  

Now that I am a mom of five kids of my own, I realize the amount of time and energy it takes to not only run a home and maintain other activities but to do those things and still love others while I do it all. It is a ridiculous amount of work but you know what?  That is the love of a mom.  A love that is sacrificial and unconditional.  A love that is not critical. Not every mom loves in this way but I am so incredibly thankful to God, that He chose me to have a mom like the one that I have. I learned to love by watching my mom and now my kids are learning too.  They are learning that there is so much more to life then themselves.  They are realizing that there is so much more joy in loving and serving others than being focused only on themselves.

Back to my mom. Though she was busy with kids and activities, she managed still to have a sweet loving spirit.  My mom dealt with many critical people in her life.  She is not perfect and can be critical at times (as we all can) but she was never critical to the extent at which I believe certain people deserved from her. She has dealt with people who spent much time putting her down and making her feel less than she was but here is what I know, she is SO much greater than those critical people are in her life.  When people were critical to my mom, she stayed quiet.  She has chosen to keep silent a lot when she has been hurt or criticized. She has taken the high road and chosen not to repay evil with evil.  Whether she wants to admit it or not, she is why I have stayed silent for the past few years while my character was trampled.  I learned from watching her, whether she realized it or not, that it is not our place to “put someone in their place” but instead it is God’s place.   God is doing amazing things in my life that He could not have done if I had chosen to stand on my soapbox setting the record straight on why I have been wronged instead of giving Him the room to work.  I would have been working against what He was trying to accomplish in my life and the lives of others.  All of this, I learned from my mom. 

God is a big God.  He so does not need us to fight His battles.  There are so many critical and hateful people in the world that would rather put down and hurt others instead of loving people and allowing God room to do His work.  I am thankful for a mom who chose to stay silent when attacked and instead she allowed God to work through her situations and teach her as she sat still before Him.  I have chosen to follow her lead and to focus my love and attention on loving my God, my children and others so that God can do His work in my life. This is what I pray my children are learning from watching their mom as this is what I learned from watching my own mom. 

Thank you God for my amazing mom! Thank you mom for being my greatest advocate and for believing in me when others did not.  That is most definitely the LOVE of a MOM!