Happy Mother's Day!

Somewhere in the world it's still Mother's Day, isn't it??? Regardless of the timing, I hope the sentiments are not lost. Don't you just love my zany mom and dad?!? :-)

There's a significant moment that happens in each of our lifetimes. For some, it occurs earlier than others. For me, it occurred sometime in my Freshman year of college. I will never forget it.

I was getting ready to call my mom about some minor crisis that was happening in my life, looking to see how she could offer just that right advice, perspective, and/or answers that would make everything all right like she had for the previous 18 years of my life. As I was getting ready to pick up the phone, the revelation enlightened my mind (and I'm pretty sure angelic music was playing in the background).

My mother is a person.

Pretty revolutionary, wasn't it? My mother had an existence outside of caring for me. She has dreams and feelings just like a real person, which means I should treat her like I would treat one of my friends, asking them how they're feeling, offering to help them, and not just going to them when I need something. It took me a few minutes to comprehend the full implications of this thought. If this was true, then this probably even meant that she had a whole other life before I was born! At this point, I had to sit down.

Funny as it seems now, it's really true that we have a tendency to think of "Mom" as "Mom," the one we go to when everything's wrong because she can somehow make everything right. And while my mother has been nothing but AMAZING at everything from helping with school projects to sewing new clothes to teaching me how to jump rope to holding my arms up when I just couldn't keep them up any more, she is also one of the wisest and most talented women that I've ever known.

Because my mom is so humble, most would not know that whenever she graduated from Penn State, she got a job in sales at Kopper's traveling around the country selling railroad ties, one of the only women nationally in that position. She did so phenomenally well at it that she won a prestigious sales award from the company (over all the other salespeople) and worked her way up to an executive position. She chose to walk away from the business world whenever I was born, trading in prestigious awards for often thankless service to her children who may or may not have realized that she was a person. :-)

If my mom ever thought twice about her decision, she's never let me know. I know her sacrifices have been great, and I can only pray that God rewards her tenfold for all that she's given to me and so many other people that she reaches through her ministry and writing.

Thank you, mom, for being such an example of Jesus. You truly are worth so much more than precious rubies (Prov. 31:10).