Mother's Day has been a somewhat conflicting Sunday for me for many years now. I have been a mother for about 18 yrs - but I have been without my own mother for almost 15 of those years. My mom was the best! She was the room-mom kind of mom. She was crafty and hospitable. She put us in matching Easter dresses and bonnets, that she made! (Like she sewed us actual clothes, that we wore - not just costumes and such - real, out in the world clothes.) When I was in high school, she was infamous for her legendary hair braiding skills - often braiding most of the heads of the very large Miami Killian Marching Cougar Band. She quilted and baked. She could do calligraphy and play the auto harp. She was just an amazing mother!
Tomorrow is not Mother's Day. Tomorrow is May 15th. It's a big day around here. My eldest will turn 18 and we will celebrate his birthday and HS graduation with friends and family. But it also will mark the 15th year of being without my mom. So here I sit, at the end of this fabulous Mother's Day, full of emotions. There are so many ups and downs in life and so many times when things are uncertain, hard, or just crappy. And as I reflect, I am reminded of the last thing my mother told me. She didn't speak to me out of her eloquence or crafty skill. She spoke out of relationship and experience.
She was getting worse and had been taken to the hospital in Miami and I called to talk with her - it was Mother's Day. I was sad and afraid at the diagnosis and as tears began to fall, she quoted from Malachi 3.6, "The LORD, my God, does NOT change." It didn't matter to her what anyone said or what it looked like - God was still God. It was still uncertain, hard, and crappy, but God hadn't changed. I am so thankful for my mom and the godly example she was for me till the end. I pray everyday to be that kind of example for my boys. I'm not the most hospitable and I can't sew or braid hair, but I pray that like my mother, in everything I do, I would be an example of Jesus for my boys.