Why My Mom Is The Best

Ever since I was a little girl, I have admired and looked up to my mother. Trying on her high heels as she got ready to go out, I knew I would never be as grown-up and beautiful as my mom. 

She greeted me each day with an eager smile and spark of energy, asking me how many swedish pancakes I wanted for breakfast. She was my Room Mom for each grade (when that was cool) and made me a birthday cake of my choice every year since I can remember. My brothers and I would joke that she had a "story of the week" for all the neighbors around town, as she bounced from the library to the grocery store to our activities in her tennis skirt. 

In the winter, my mom was energetically shoveling snow off the driveway in the same pink snowsuit she still wears, even as neighbors made circles around her with their snowblowers. She stayed up late to help me as I cried through my math homework, she always let me punch the bread down before it went into the oven, and she was my biggest encourager when I felt like nobody was. She rode her bike so I could have the car, she brought me lunch when I forgot it, and she bribed me to go on a missions trip that ended up changing my life. She empowered me to make my own decisions - for better or worse - she taught me how to choose Truth. 

Yes - it was always obvious - my mom was the very best in the whole world.

Now that I'm 25... my mom and I share clothes (truth be told: I came home from Spain to many little items of mine "misplaced" in her closet... ;)), and I know my mom isn't perfect. 

But she's still the best. 

Her sacrifices for me & my brothers have been unending. My mom makes the details of my life a priority - from traveling near and far to see me play in badminton & drill team, to flying down to SING, to backpacking in northern Spain, to visiting the chicks in my Kindergarten class... she has never stopped making me feel important. 

She is my supporter and my strength and my biggest fan. She speaks truth into my ears and believes the best for me. She is who I call when I am homesick in Waco, or don't know where to find something in the grocery store, or after I know I said the wrong thing to a friend, or when I feel the weight of being a first year teacher. She is Home to me - she has created the sense of refuge, unconditional love, and safety that defines what a home really is.

For me, being a mom always seemed effortless because of Mickey. But I now understand a bit more clearly what it takes to have a child... and I know it always requires sacrifice to give attention and value to another human every second. For my mom, it was never out of obligation, but always out of deep heartfelt love.

She has given me what nobody else can - an example of the mom I hope to be someday.