For Mom

So my mother asked all six of her children to forgo gifts this year for Mother's Day and send her a card - on time - with one of our favorite memories with her. Funny how most of us just want to remember, rather than receive gifts and I would imagine my mother - after nearly 32 years of being a mom - wants to remember more than anything now.

So, Mom, this is for you. Happy Mother's Day to the best mother who ever lived. I am so blessed that I am only one of six people on this whole planet that gets to call you "Mom."

My mother is a creative person, the only girl in her family, and the youngest with two older brothers. I think it quite ironic that she and my father had NO sisters, came from small families and wound up with five girls and one boy. Kind of funny how God gives us things we really know nothing about, but my mother was and is the best.

She is a small woman - 5 feet 2 inches - and every single one of us towers over her. I personally love it because I feel like we just get to love on her more. Don't think her short stature means that she is meek and mild, there is a spunky woman underneath that small exterior and a lady full of passion for her husband, her God, and absolutely for her children.

My mother is truly a saint. Not only did she deliver all six of us naturally, she homeschooled us, took us to every game, music practice (even an hour away), created with us, and she had someone in diapers for 17 years. She also was married to a very busy doctor and if you are writing off her woes because of my father's profession let me stop you here. In a small town doctors don't make as much money as the normal physician, their were 8 mouths to feed, and my father had to take call with the hospital on a regular basis - keeping him from ever having a 9-5 job. We also had no family around, so my mother heavily depended on her friends and our church for support.

I have many memories of my mother. Very sweet ones - like her nursing my younger siblings, her cooking spaghetti in the kitchen, fish sticks and tater totts when Dad was on call and not coming home, laying out in our backyard while we played in our little plastic pool, cooking cookies and cakes, and carpooling. Many of my memories are precious and I have never known what it was like to not be loved. Spoiled, no! Loved deeply, yes. I never questioned this from her (or my father for that matter).

My most precious memory, though, was at the age of six. You see my mother was only 33 at the time. She was putting me to bed and it was time for prayers. I was fearful that night - fearful of dying, fearful of what happens next. A lot, you might say, for a young mind, but I was just old enough to start recognizing that I would not live forever.

That night, when I explained my fears to my mother as she was tucking me in I realized I was afraid of hell. I wanted so to be good, but even at six I knew that I always messed up. I felt my mess ups might send me to hell. Crazy, you may ask? I was six, but in that fear my mother was able to explain to me about salvation and how my faith in Christ would insure that I would one day go to heaven. My mother presented her faith (which was only three years old at the time), asked me if I wanted to pray to ask Jesus into my life, and I followed her words as that evening I began my Christian journey. Even at six I knew I was changed.

So, Mom, thanks for the spaghetti, the fish sticks when Dad was gone, the cookie baking, diaper changing, and the overwhelming love you have always given me. But most importantly thank you for giving me the greatest gift I know - the doorway to my salvation.

Happy Mother's Day! I love you!

Your Eldest,
Alison