On Mothers Day

To My Sister~

The one thing I’ve always noted in you, Nancy, is your loving demeanour. You are patient, you are kind, you are gentle, you do not boast, you do not keep a record or wrongs. :/ … I’m certain I’ve read that somewhere else…

Anyway, I cannot attest to the daughter you are; nor can I (even on this Mother’s Day) attest to the mother you are.

What I can speak to is your precious, welcoming disposition, and the love of Christ you live out.

Thank you for being a friend to me.

I thank God for you in my life.

To My Mother~

It seems that I wait until one of these Hallmark days to express what is in my heart more often than not…

You were a young mother, and you are now a young grandmother, but you remain a young mother to me (and I’m sure I may speak for all three of us when I say this).

Many fifty-year-olds probably don’t even text, let alone communicate with their mother through this medium (even if it is mostly to discuss Colby returning to Jeopardy! or actresses you hate from the 1930s :-).

I thank and praise God for blessing me as He has with the people who have been in my life throughout all my years: friends, girlfriends, bosses, students – but all come and go – they are in my sphere of influence for a season.

But you, Mom, have loved me in spite of me and because of me but all because of Him and (I’m sure often enough) by His amazing grace!

So I’m thankful for you and your unconditional love. I’m thankful that you showed me Jesus – while you were a young mom – and how He can love anybody and everybody.

To My Wife~

When we met twenty years ago, you were a single mom whom I tried to impress with my knowledge of all things unimportant and my unbridled passion for getting my own way. Through twenty years of your tempering, I have found that the former is indeed trivial at best, and the latter is very grave sin (although I still cling, all too often).

But what I have also come to know and appreciate about you is the deep, deep love that you have for those you hold dear in your heart: for your boys, your parents, your siblings and their families.

This quality, this characteristic of Your Person, is a big part of what makes you so beautiful to me.

We surely didn’t know what we were signing up for when we began our journey together all those years ago. But I’m thankful for what we have shared, and for the chapters that have not yet been written. I love you.