So This is Mother's Day

Mother's Day could be a very bad day for me every year. But it's not. Three years ago in March, my mom passed away from lung cancer, she was 59. She went into the hospital on December 31, they did surgery to remove the tumor, but found that it had spread. She had chemo, got an infection and spent the last 8 weeks of her life in a hospital room. I loved my mom, and life has been very different since then. I don't even remember the rest of that year, 2003, except that I got Daisy, one of my dogs. It's only thru the grace of God that I still had my job, friends, and a church. I discovered that I am not very good at the whole grief thing. I miss her terribly, especially on days like today...but not in a bitter, angry, kind of way. You see, God has been so incredibly generous to me in the way He has surrounded me with wonderful, loving women of God who love me so much. At my mom's funeral, about half of the people who came were from my church, my church family I should say. That's just an example of the healing power of God's love and how He uses his church.

This morning at church, we did the whole Mother's Appreciation thing, and we have some incredible mothers at our church. There is one mother, a single mother with 4 children, one set of twins, a boy and a girl, and two other daughters. When I first met her the twins were 3 years old, they are now 13 (i think) and the mother is a grandmother. You want to talk about a rough life, she had it, every excuse to have a rough family of her own, but she has an incredible family and she is an incredible mother. She is an LVN and has started work on her RN. Her children all serve the Lord and are wonderful kids. She is a total inspiration to me and lots of people thru her incredible testimony of God's powerful hand in her life.

So, instead of being all sad today, I have rejoiced because of the wonderful mothers around me. One of my BFFs has included me into her family, and her extended family. It's is to her moms house that I go on holidays, Christmas, Easter and Mother's Day, where my friends two daughters brought me a rose today, they never leave me out of things like that. Although I don't have a biological mother on this earth anymore, I have several spiritual mothers who more than make up in my mom's absence.

So, Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful, loving, giving, sharing, sacrificing, hiney-wiping, snot-cleaning, hugging, caring moms out there. Good work!!!