mothers day

This one nearly slipped by. We don't get little reminders like television commercials and greeting cards in the supermarket out here. I've managed to miss quite a few holidays - and been assigned to flights on every one except Christmas over the years. But not this year, not for Mother's Day at least. At church this morning, as we were once again amazed at that paragon of goodness and virtue, Mrs. Proverbs Thirty-One, Renee was reading through the list and keeping score, 2 out of twenty... OK three. And me, next to her, jabbing my elbow lovingly into her ribs, I was correcting her incomplete picture. It turns out that my wife is perhaps "the best mom in the world." At least that's what Zach said this morning to me, and to the guy wrapping her flowers at the shopping center, and I think he blurted it out quite loudly in church too. Take the expert opinion of a five-year-old if you want to know what a great mom is. These two kids "rise and call her blessed" not only on Mother's Day, but pretty nearly every day from what I can recall. The true importance of motherhood, it seems to me, is in the wonder of how our homes end up becoming our world. When I was gone for a week in Sudan some months ago, Renee sent me a text message on my phone. "Just prayed with Zach to ask Jesus into his heart!" I smiled at the glowing letters on my phone and wrote her back. "And this is how a mother changes the world." And it is. I remember my mom teaching me the same things at my bedside so long ago. I'm thirty five and still call her blessed. Happy Mother's Day mom. (And you too sweetheart.)