Happy Mother’s Day

Proverbs 31:30 “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.”

This is my mom with my son last Easter in Memphis. The verse above applies to her! I’m thankful to have a mom who fears the Lord and who has always been an example to me of living a life devoted to Him. She is full of compassion and love for others, selflessness about herself, and always seeking to direct people to the Lord, their source of hope, and His truth.

My mom has not had the easiest of lives, but she has a fruitful and joyful life lived in the Lord. When I was 2 months old, my father died in a car wreck. My mom was 25 years old, a young widow with two daughters. She moved back to Memphis, her hometown.

3 years later, my mom lost her mother to cancer. She did get to see her mother come to a saving faith in Christ 2 weeks before she died! When I was 7, my mom’s father died. We adored him. When I was in college, her sister and only sibling died. I’ve always thought it must have been hard to lose those closest to you in such a short span of time and still while relatively young.

This last year, my mom lost her second husband suddenly, only about 2 weeks after losing a dear friend. She’s still figuring out life with his absence.

In all these losses, her confidence in the Lord has never been shaken. She is grounded in the Bible and trusts the Lord for each day, and He has always provided. There are so many stories of His faithfulness to her and to us through the years.

Through God’s grace, faithfulness, and provision for us, we never lacked a thing. My sister and I both attended a Christian school for 13 years that gave us a solid foundation and stability. I have no idea how that worked out precisely, but I am grateful. We always attended the same church where I was baptized, married the preacher’s son, and had my children dedicated to the Lord.

While her life is a story of God’s faithfulness, on this Mother’s Day weekend, I want to thank her for choosing to follow Him, for her consistency and the choices she made that brought us stability and a solid home life. It could not have been easy to do that alone, to have to go to work each day, to be a single mom, but she did it with grace, without complaint, with joy.

Thank you, Lord, for my precious mom!