Mom

After reading a post (that I loved) by my sister Kara about our parents, I looked at this picture sitting on my window sill and had to share it.

This is one of my very favorite pictures.
I could be wrong, but I think this is my Mom holding me after I went through surgery on my eye. The reason I say "I could be wrong" is because I can't imagine why my parents would hold me up in direct sunlight after getting eye surgery. But that's where I've always thought this picture was from... and it's too late to call my Mom and check.

Either way. I love this picture.
I love my Mom.

My Mom is an excellent mom. I think this year she has received more phone calls from me than she ever wished to receive in her life. But she would also tell me not to say that, because no matter how many times I call, how many questions I ask, no matter how many tears I cry or thoughts I run by her-- at the end, she always tells me how good it was to talk.

She's always spoken truth into my life, encouraged me in prayer, ministry, and friendships.
She has this incredible ability, definitely aided by the work of the Holy Spirit, in our conversations to help me figure out what on earth is going through my mind and what it is exactly that I need to hear.

Thanks for being who you are, Mom. Incredibly gifted, loving, selfless, and strong, with a heart powerfully pursuing the Lord. Thanks for all the hallmark movies you've watched with me, for sitting at the kitchen table crying tears of joy with me the day after God called me to ministry, and for modeling before me the kind of wife and mom I want to be some day.

I could go on and on.
I love you, Mom.

(Life Form.)