Happy Mother's Day.

"Because God needed someone to love the least and the little into real whole people, and He knew that to love is to suffer so God made a mother."

I was just talking to a beautiful friend about what it is like to be a mother and how many can choose to never be a mother and will truly never feel like they missed out on anything. But I also told her there is nothing in the world that will make you feel and love as deeply as being a mother does.

Not marriage.

Not friends.

Not circumstances.

The quote above at the top is from Ann Voskamp's blog in a post titled, "So God Made a Mother." Please read it and send it along to your mothers or to someone who needs to be encouraged.

My mother is the epitome of what she wrote about being a mom.  My mom literally suffered with me through the first six weeks of Ruth's life here with us. Staying the night and spending all hours helping me fumble through the weakest season of my life.  She is soooo much grace and shows the love of Jesus (sacrificial) to the nth degree.  She was right: I would have never known how much she truly loved me until I had one of my own.

Love is no longer a word. It is a way of living and breathing. It is essential and full of sacrifice and joy.

It is a priceless thing, to be a mother. It illustrates our utter depravity and desperate need for Jesus and gracefully partners that with the most beautiful parts of exactly who we were created to be.  

Ruth has changed my life. In more ways than I could ever express.  I have never known what it truly means to "steward" something or someone. To daily plead with Jesus to have any idea of how to raise up a child that loves Jesus and loves others.  

Proverbs 31:28

"Her children rise up and bless her and her husband also, and he praises her."