I went Saturday to visit my mom in Stockton on the occasion of my niece's son's third birthday. I was feeling sick but I wanted to go for her sake, and I wanted to see my mom.
I sat by my mom for the two hours I was there and I found myslef looking at her, usually when her head was turned to the side. I was flooded with memories...but the one thing that struck me was how beautiful she still is after eighty-one years of life.
She is pretty by any standards but my mother is a beautiful woman in so many other ways. She and I struggled in our relationship together when I was a rebellious teenager. I made life very difficult for her-- almost single-handedly-- but our relationship survived those years and now I feel very close to her. Very proud of her. Very thankful for her.
My mother's beauty is that her love for God over the sixty years she has been a Christian has molded and shaped her life. She has lityerally spent her life for others--whether her children or the members of her church family, who my father pastored until his death. She remains the one who writes cards and letters to college students, missionaries around the world, to the sick and needy. She is the one who visits the shutins, stops by the hospital, makes the encouraging phone call. At Christmas time there are literally hundreds of cards that come to her as a testimony to her life of loving service.
It's what makes her truly beautiful.
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