Mother's Day

Dear Mums,

Happy Mother's Day!!

Mums, I have so many things to be grateful for today as I sit here and contemplate the immeasurable blessing God has given me, and our family, in you as our mother. I couldn't ask for any better, and I wouldn't want any other. Your love for the small things in life, for tomato seedlings springing up, for fat little birds hopping around our deck, for a wild daffodil peering through the bushes in a roadside ditch - these are just some of the things I admire and love about you.

I love the way you laugh when the red breasted grosbeak gobbles our sunflower seeds so greedily, the twinkle in your eye as you play the match-maker, the way you share another's sorrow when their own burdens are too heavy for them. You laugh with me, cry with me, tell me it will be alright when it seems like the sky is falling down.

Mums, I love your wild ideas, the way you aren't afraid to try the impossible, to jump outside the box and stay out. You don't let conventional standards hold you in, and you love the improbable. You see hope in the hopeless, an untended and overgrown soul that just needs a listening ear and a big dose of love and God's truth when others see a rebellious child or an unfaithful spouse.

I love you for all the time you have poured into raising me to fear God, to hold family close, and to never let a conflict go unresolved. What I have learned in character, I have learned by God's grace through your nurturing and teaching, showing me the way in which I should walk. You have constantly turned my eyes to God, teaching me to love Him, encouraging me to give my life to Him, helping me to grow my trust ever deeper in Him.

Mums, thank you for all you are to me and all you have done for me. There are so, so many more things I love about you and that I am grateful for - as they say, this is just the tip of the iceberg. But perhaps one of the most important things you ever taught me was how to say... "I love you." Because I want to say it now.

I love you, Mums.

Happy, happy Mother's Day!

Forever your loving son,

Ike