This Woman Really Loves

Yes, unfortunately, my blog posts have been reduced to bi-monthly and now holiday-related occurrences since I’ve started working full-time.  So this would be my very late Mother’s Day edition (just in time for Memorial Day)—and this is a tribute to my beautiful, wonderful mom.  It goes without saying that she means the world to me, which should not mean that I should go without saying it, ‘cause every mom loves a good card and a hug or phone call.  I could sit here and make a list of how wonderful she is, but instead, I’ll include a story—and yes, it includes orphans---surprise!

Soon after I started sponsoring Martin, my parents started sponsoring Lillian in the same village.  Lillian is about Martin’s age, around 15 or so.  Shyest, sweetest kid you will ever meet. 

One thing you should know about my mom is that she is a very faithful letter-writer.  Yesiree, snail mail is alive  and well in her house.  She’ll write little A and I usually once month and include stickers for Little A or sometimes a recipe or an article for me to read.  She’s just as faithful when it comes to writing Lillian.

Flashback to last summer’s trip to Uganda.  We had a day of debriefing in Kampala with our guide before starting on the multi-day journey to Adacar.  Our team gathered around a table on the motel’s outdoor patio and listened to our guide as he did his best to prepare us for what we were about the witness, giving us time to ask questions.  As our meeting was drawing to a close, our team leader handed our guide a pack of sponsor mail.  He started flipping through it and he pulled out one letter.  I could see my mother’s unmistakable handwriting from across the long table and tears immediately began to well up in my eyes—an unexpected piece of home had hit me full-force.    As he held it up, David, our guide, paused and asked, “Who is this woman?  This woman really loves this child.  She writes to her almost every month.”  By this time, tears were streaming down my face, because I missed her, I missed my own daughter too as I thought of them back home and I croaked out, “That’s my mother.” 

I had flown 7,000 miles around the world to hear the words that I already knew in my heart:

This woman really loves.

My mother’s faithfulness was shining through in this simple act, it may have been a footnote for everyone else on the team, but it was huge to me.

The crazy part is, as a mom, sometimes we face what the experts would label “mommy-guilt”—not breastfeeding long enough, forgetting to put that one-hundred-billionth note in their lunch that day, not making all their baby food out of 100% organic ingredients, working too much as they were growing up, not working enough as they were growing up, not getting a blog post up in time for a particular holiday--- blah, blah, blah.  We’re our own worst critics.  But here’s the thing, over time, our children we see who we are by our actions, they will see the tenderness of our hearts in the smallest things and will want to be just like us, it’s true.  So, thank you, moms for your faithfulness and thank you God, for being that Supreme model of faithfulness for never leaving us, never forsaking us and thank you, Mom for being who you are.  I love you.