Dust

It's amazing what we set aside to collect dust. Beautiful things, like vases from people who've given flowers, spare change, picture frames with photos you no longer have to look at because you've looked at them 1,000 times before, and jewelery that you'll never wear again. I found my collection of pennies tonight. It's a pitiful collection if you knew how long I've been collecting. Mainly because I forget that I'm collecting them or I use my debit card instead of cash. So tonight, in honor of finding my collection, I went on a hunt for all the pennies around the house and in my car to add to my collection. I think I doubled my collection just from the pennies I found on my mom's dresser.

It was on her dresser that I also found small pieces of jewelery my sisters and I had bought for her in Mother's Days past that said things like "Best Mom" and "I <3 you Mom." My personal favorites are the butterfly pins she's collected over the years. She loves butterflies because they are to her a symbol of new life. Which, if you knew my mother the way I do, is a tear-jerking statement to hear her say and is, to me, a glimpse of God's amazing love for us. I doubt she knows just how much she has influenced my view of grace, in a good way of course.

I'll be the first to admit that my mom and I don't always see eye to eye and sometimes I wonder how on earth we could be related. I don't think that we look alike by any means and our personalities are almost complete opposites. But, putting all those things aside she is my mother. She's the one who showed me how to love God and love people, she was the one that put up with me crawling into bed with her when there was a thunderstorm, she was the one who drove me to all my sporting events and was my sideline cheerleader, she's been the one to encourage me and to give me an honest opinion, and she's bent over backwards to make sure my sisters and I were taken care of.

I love my mother and I know that I don't tell her that enough. I'm thankful for all that she has verbally told me and what she's silently taught me by the way she lives her life. I'm getting to the age where her monarchy over my life is over and I get to make the mistakes for myself, but I have yet to out grow her. She is no longer the disciplinarian, but my friend and I never thought that I would live to hear myself say that. She has weathered the storms of my trouble-making childhood, my moody preteen years, and my angst ridden teenage existence and I hope now to show her my gratitude by living out the one goal she has set for me: to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Thank you for loving me when I didn't deserve it. I wouldn't be where I am without you.

Happy Mother's Day, Momma :)