Happy Mothers Day MOM!

Before I became a mother, it was easy to pick out a Mother’s Day gift for my mom. I had the privilege of ignorance. But on May 28, 2009, that ignorance flew out the window at St Joe’s Hospital when a baby girl was placed in my arms. Now I know.

Having heard on my birthday or on different occasions how my own mom suffered through a few days of labor, I bounced on labor balls, drank gross teas, did silly prenatal classes that my husband hated and we both laughed so hard until naturally…I peed my pants.  Worked out up until the hour before labor started (well maybe not literally, but just about), did frequent prenatal massages hitting all the supposed right ‘buttons’, had a whole line of lavender shower gels and bubble bath for my ‘Jacuzzi suite’ at the hospital, I even hired a doula to help me through my drug free typed out birth plan labor! I now felt it.  Nature, God, would have it be so that I myself would be over due and then go through 30+ hours of labor followed by a c-section.  And HELL YES I got the drugs, I got them all!  I will pat myself on the back and say I managed 12 hours drug free w/ my doula at my side, then I told her to get the heck out of there I was walking myself to the room (w/o a tub there was no way I was sitting in a tub, I could barely sit in a chair!) and Phil was calling the DR to get me the EPI as fast as I could have one!

Having heard my mother say that you just can’t explain it, you have to experience it- I now know.   I have never loved something or someone so much in my entire 28 ½ years!

I had never loved my mother more either. Now I know. The magnitude of what my mother had done for me all my life has sunk in.

So how exactly am I supposed to say thank you to my mother now that I know?

For countless meals fixed or fetched, for hairdos perfected before school and messed up before the after school activity (I still have grueling pictures of an awful side ponytail),  for loving my friends like they were her own, for pretending and being silly, for enduring back to school shopping with me and sometimes even a friend, for carpooling, for taking us on vacations, for protecting me and Lauren from harm, for scaring away the monsters in my room, for comforting me when kids were mean, for correcting me when I was mean, for listening to kids’ music in the car, for cheering me on even when I wanted to play on the boys baseball team,  for cheering us on from the bleachers even when our team couldn’t win a game, for enduring my adolescent mood swings, for teaching us about Jesus’ love for others, and for doing all these things with love and a smile on her face (well most days! J). HOW? How do I thank my mother for raising me? And for doing it without letting on how hard it was?

Mom, truly, I thank you. Now that I know, I don’t know how you did it. But I’m grateful. And I hope I can raise your grandchildren in such a way that they remember me with a smile on my face. Even if I put all my money in my purse and spent a year doing nothing but shop for the perfect Mother’s Day gift to accurately reflect your worth to me as a mother, it would elude me. Nothing in a store could ever measure up to your value.

I want to give a gift that means something more. I want to show you your value to me by showing a little girl in Colombia how much value she has to Christ. She is living in a very dark, unsafe brothel and her own mother is a slave to many men. Her mother is unable to care for her the way she deserves because she is not free to stop working. But her mother wants freedom, protection and life for her child. Her mother is saying, “Help me by helping my daughter.”

With a financial gift made in your honor, God is providing a means of rescue for this little girl through http://www.colombiastreetkids.org/

Every day in Colombia:
800 children are orphaned by violence
2 are kidnapped
6 commit suicide

50 Become involved in Guerilla warfare
over 3000 are assaulted and children are abandoned to live on the streets

Population in Colobmia:
Total number of minors under 18 years 16,233,000, 41.5 % of the population. 6,500,000 live in situations classified as below the poverty level or 38.9%
Of these there are living in absolute poverty 17.5 % or 1137,500 boys and girls.

These statistics are alarming but there is always light!  You have been a light in my world, I will continue to be a light in the world also! 

Mom, thank you for being you!  Happy Mothers Day!

I love you,

Kristen