Today is my momma’s birthday! She has truly been a gift to my life and now that I am all grown up and a momma of my own there are many times thoughts of things she did when I was child filter back through and I realize even more so what a good momma she is.
According to her I have been independent my entire life. She said she could tell from the time that I was tiny that if she didn’t give me space she was going to push me away.
In most ways I am a spitting image of my daddy, which is probably why my mom and I get along so good. BUT Cameron says the older I get the more I am getting like my momma. I am loud and talk a lot, she is quiet and reserved. I love to talk to people and get their story and she would rather watch the kids or cook in the kitchen somewhere out of the spotlight.
While quiet people often wish they had the gift of gab I am learning that quiet is wise and humble equals strong. My momma is both wise and strong. I was a messy child, always creating and ruining things like carpet and freshly painted walls. My mom could never find the scissors or tape because I had toted them off to my room for some crazy project. I was a free spirit and never wanted to wear the clothes she wanted me to wear and even more so I wanted to wear some ridiculous things and she never uttered a word. Today I thought on her birthday I would share one story that impacted me so much as a child, but I never knew it did until I was all grown up.
” I loved these strawberry espadrilles at wal mart. I couldn’t have been much older than eight or nine and according to my mom when i retold her the story she said they were actually ladies shoes. Either way, I really wanted them and when the got marked down to a whopping two dollars I got to bring those floppy shoes home. At some point within the first days of owning them though I cut the red laces off that were intended to go up my leg off which left a pair (see, I was always cutting and destroying things) of really ridiculous shoes. They were too big now and I can only imagine how great of a removal job I did of the red laces.
And you know what, my mom never said a word. She never told me no when I wanted to buy them, she never told me not to cut the laces off and she never discouraged me from wearing them in public which brings me to my favorite part of the whole story.
We were going somewhere with my aunt, I don’t remember where, but I am guessing somewhere nice. I walked out of the house with my semi-homemade shoes and my aunt looked at my mom and said “are you going to let her wear those shoes” my mom just shrugged her shoulder and said “yep”. I remember how much my heart swelled; “she believed in me”. I cant imagine how different my life would be had she said “those are ridiculous and you need to go change”. Even more so if she had trumped every idea I ever had throughout my childhood. I am grateful that she never did and still doesn’t when I have crazy ideas like hosting a sale out of our barn. She’s the best kind of cheerleader. She never discourages me, she just steps in and helps.
This past spring I got really behind on our laundry. It was two weeks before a barn sale and I was completely overwhelmed with everything. And I did one of the hardest things for me to do. I called my mom and asked for help. I started the conversation with lots of “if you don’t have time” or “if you have something else you need to do” and she sweetly agreed and came over the next day and did laundry for four hours straight. She also brought lunch and I don’t think she knows to this day how much I needed her at that time. She could have easily did the mom thing and said “you have taken on too much” but she didn’t. She helped me along like she has been doing for the past 31 almost 32 years.
It is encouraging to my heart that God has a plan for us before we even set foot on this earth. It is even more encouraging that he knows the exact people we need to be our mom, friend, or grandma to get us there. My mom inspires me in my own journey as a navigate through motherhood. She gave me a great gift by loving me as who I was, she gave me wings. I hope that I can do that for my own children. I want to encourage them to be who God made them to be even if it means them wearing ridiculous outfits or hanging 45 things on their walls “decorating their rooms”. There are going to be plenty of people that tell them they can’t or they aren’t good enough, but I hope and pray I am like my momma and I am one of the people that always believes in them and gives them their wings.
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