mothers day
May 13 2007
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.)