Mother’s Day 2013

I miss my mom today. I am living on an island in the Caribbean and she is almost 1,000 miles away and I can’t just pop in to visit or have one of her delicious home cooked meals. I can’t wrap my arms around her and enjoy one of her wonderful hugs and tell her how much I love her. Gratefully, I can pick up a phone and hear her sweet voice and will do so as soon as I finish capturing these thoughts of her and her influence in my life.

I have always loved my mother dearly but as a young child and well into my teen years I never understood her (self-centered creature that I was). It wasn’t until I became a mother myself that my eyes were open to the sacrifices she made on behalf of her children, of the obstacles that she had to overcome, and of the many anxious moments that me and my siblings put her through. I am sorry to say that a lot of those gray hairs on her head were caused by me.

My mother exudes care and compassion. She probably wouldn’t agree with me because she is her own biggest critic. But it’s those qualities that brought her to the point of returning to college while I was attending college so she could pursue a career in nursing after her children were mostly grown and moving on in the world. I can’t count the times that we would run into people while out and about who had either had my mother as their nurse or someone in their family had had her as their nurse. They always spoke so highly of her loving care and the special time she took with her patients.

Those college years were years of healing in our relationship that had gotten very stormy during my teen years. We became college buddies; we commuted to college together and would often spend time together studying or eating lunch in the school cafeteria. I am so thankful that God gave me those years with my mom. It was during that time that I started to view her as a person and came to admire her dedication to whatever task she had at hand. I was always an average student in school – mostly because I just didn’t apply myself. But in college I became an A-B student and even made the Dean’s List a few times. I attribute that to her example and her encouragement.

My mom is a wonderful encourager. She knows how to speak into our lives words that build us up and is one of our biggest fans. She is so proud of our accomplishments in life, no matter how small, and she is not afraid to let the world know how she feels.

She is a woman of faith. She loves Jesus and loves others with that same love. Just ask the people in her small mountain church in North Carolina or those in her small group from her Florida church, or the women that she helps at the pregnancy center, or her friends, or her neighbors, or her grandchildren, or the myriad of people who have been touched by her faith through her years of involvement in Cursillo and CFO! She and my dad faithfully pray for their loved ones and are not afraid to share their faith or to take a stand for what they believe in.

I sometimes wonder why at the stage in my life where I could be free to spend lots of time with my parents, why God would call me to be so far away from them. But I am here on the mission field in large part because of what they have poured into me over the years. They have helped to shape and mold me, they have been such an example to me of a life chasing after God.

So, I miss my mom today – and lots of other days too – but I am so very grateful that she has and will continue to have great influence in my life.

I love you mom!