Gra(y)ce: A Basis of Awesome-ness.

So maybe this is late by a day or two, but I thought I'd write a quick bit on mothers.

Okay, mostly about mine (it's where I get most of my info after all).

First off– I hold the opinion that my Mom is something of a super-mom. She raised all five of my siblings and I and in my opinion, we are all pretty good kids/now adults and almost aldults (youngest of us is 18). We seem to have a balance of love and care and sense of self-responsibility. We most all seem to have a great respect for the council of our parents, but at the same time feel the freedom to think analytically about what they say as well as others. This all comes from parents.

Every time I work with a family and the kids are whiny or bossy or know-it-alls I never take it out on the kids, because it's not the kids that raised themselves to be that way.

I appreciate the way my parents, or for the topic of this post, my mom, raised me. And this post is just the short of it. I could write volumes.

She has given me a desire to grow.

From a young age I watched her study and wrestle with her relationship with God. I watched her light up when she learned anything new from any topic. I saw take steps to expand her knowledge and her perspective. Curiosity. Wonder. Confidence. Willingness to be taught. I love this about my mom and I love that I see it each of us to some capacity.

She has taught me that sometimes you have to just go with it.

I remember hearing from older siblings that my mom was strict about her time. This is true to a certain extent. She doesn't often have a lot of time so care needs to be taken in planning it, but when something disrupts her she will look at it for a bit then adjust. When things happen that you can't help, you can sit and wallow in your lost plan, or you can adjust and move on.

She has taught me hospitality.

People have always been in and out of our house. Once we had a family with something like 8 kids stay a few days with us. I had no idea how we knew them, but I think they were a friend of a friend who was passing through the area and needed cheap lodging. She always said that our things were not ours but God's, gifts on our life, so she had no right to be selfish. We've had more than one couple live with us for months at a time, an exchange student. Our Thanksgivings have reached almost forty guests. At one point to she hosted the Christmas party for her entire church choir managing a sit down dinner for around sixty. You don't grow up with this, without gaining a few pointers...however poorly executed : )

She taught me practical Grace.

Over the course of my life I have seen her interact with more "difficult" people with more kindness and love than should possible. Whether is was someone with special needs, or someone who was just obnoxious, she treats them with the same respect and grace as another person she interacts with. She is forever humanizing the people the world wants us to degrade to personality traits (i.e. "jerk", "retarded", "disabled", "_______") and never talks bad about them later, the worst I've heard was her saying something like, "it was difficult talking to them" or "pray for me dealing with this person, they just drain me". Every time I have trouble with someone I remind myself to try and see them through my mom's eyes. Because they have shown me a picture of God's grace.

These are not just biased opinions either. My mom teaches parenting classes at the local Women's center. The young mom's she works with communicate their high view of my mom's grace and wisdom. "Debbie Gray said...." is a sort of law on some level. Its gets almost comical to the point of if they handle their child in a certain way when I or one of my sisters are around they say, "Don't tell your mom I just did that." I'm not sure she has ever met a person who could not love her, because she so clearly loves and cares for everyone she meets. I had a friend text me to tell my Mom "Happy Mothers Day" yesterday. She had met her once (though this example speaks of greatness on both characters).

What is the basis of this level of awesome-ness? That is the best part...not my mom. She has never in her whole life that I can remember taken credit for anything great she has done. If I tell her she's a great mom, more times or not she will tell me that God's been working with her a lot, or that she knows I'll be even better than her. She will tell me her faults (like anger...she told me at age eight that God was working with her on her temper and she was sorry she had lashed out...come on!) she will tell me some of her struggles, she will share with me what she's learning or what she has learned, and she will always encourage me that her grace and peace and love and all the other attributes I see have come from giving her life every day to God.

I literally can not imagine being blessed any further by a mother. I can not express my gratitude.