Mother

Of all the people in the world celebrating their mother's tomorrow, I am convinced my siblings and I have a solid case in the argument over whose mother is the very best.

She is the personification of meekness and humility, and yet at the same time when I think of strength, my mother's face always seems to be the first to pop into my mind. Strength of character, strength of faith, strength of physicality, as well as psychology.

She brought 13 strapping babies into this world on little more than Tylenol, but that was the easiest part. Long before T.V. cameras followed mothers around their homes, my mother was in the trenches doing the tough stuff with little or no recognition. She did so without complaint, worry, or fatigue. She did it for no other reason than for the fact that it was the right thing to do, and she loved her children with a strength reflected in her resolve to grow us into intelligent, God fearing, Christ yielding adults.

The images of my mother are simple images, but as the years go by they become more and more indelible in my mind... Her rising before the sun everyday to read her Bible at the kitchen table, or on the sofa with a quart jar of water. Her walking for miles and miles in the snow, praying. Her canning vegetables over a hot stove in the summertime with a bandanna tying back her beautiful auburn curls. Her hanging endless loads of laundry to dry on the clothes line, neatly folding them and stacking them in piles on the staircase, everyday.  The curlers in her hair on Saturday nights. Her fingers as they cut mounds of flannel graph figures for Sunday mornings. Her lying on her bed at the end of a long day devouring a good book, and the pile of books waiting their turn on her nightstand. Her head bowed and eyes tightly shut each and every Wednesday night at Prayer Meeting. Her grocery lists. Her coupons. The jar of change she did not think we knew she kept in her sock drawer, that always ended up being spent on something one of us needed. Her tangled web of the best recipes in the world, and her ability to execute each and every one of them to perfection. Her head bowed as she sat on the edge of each of our beds every night, and listened to us each pray. Her worn Bible, with its copious amounts of notations in her handwriting. Her cool hand on my feverish head. The string of images always ends with the same conclusion. I have an amazing woman as my mother.

Try as they like, women today are hard pressed to walk the delicate line that is womanhood, as well as my mother always has. Oh, so very blessed are the 13 of us who have been able to call her our very own. May you be inspired by my mother this Mother's Day! I know I am.