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Day’s Verse:

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.

Prov. 31:30

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First off, I would like to say thank you to the two mothers in my life: Mom and MiL. I offer you digital flowers (below), as I cannot deliver any in person. Frankly, without either of them my life would be empty – who knows! I could be a doorknob, or three baked potatoes, or most likely single and in a dorm who-knows-where. So thank you, Mom and Deborah, for being moms and raising us right. I’d like to quote a birthday card I got from an octogenarian today at church: “Thank your parents for the training they have given you, and its shows, so they can be very proud of you.” I think the same thing can be said for Ian’s parents as well. So Moms, pat yourselves on the back, because you’ve done a wonderful job momming us when we needed the love and support you so consistently offered. We love you very much and thank God that He gave us to you as children (and children-in-laws).

In church today we got lots of very sincere hugs and handshakes along with people looking into our eyes and opining about how deeply they’ll miss us over the summer. In fact, once again First Alliance’s small-church-ness came out as we made the bulletin: “Ian and Katie will be leaving us for the summer…” followed by well-wishes and promises to pray for us. Let’s be honest: there’s nothing like finding a group that, even though they only see you once a week, actually get teary-eyed when you leave and share your joy when you’re reunited with your husband after weeks apart. A family from church promised to check our apartment once a week to make sure nobody had broken in (God willing when we arrive back here everything will be just as it was, albeit dustier and more spidery). I felt somewhat melancholy, wishing that we could do something for our mothers today, as we listened to other peoples’ plans for going out to brunch or meeting up with adult children or visiting older parents.

The sermon talked about mothers, naturally, focusing on Mary the mother of Jesus. We read Proverbs 31:10 – 30, which describes attributes of a Godly wife, and the pastor’s sermon reflected the expectations therein. Not sure if it’s a true statistic (he assured us it was because “a study proved it,” but a panning-for-gold critical thinker doesn’t accept that so easily!), but the pastor said that mothers spend 18,000 hours working for each child by the time their kids are 18. He talked about the importance of mothers in raising a child, how vital a mother’s training is in her children’s lives. Some of the things he talked about I didn’t agree with—that it’s fair for moms to have jobs but be primary child-raisers as well, for instance—but generally he emphasized what a big job moms have. I’ll be honest: I felt rather intimidated. I can only hope I’ll be as good of a mother as mine has been to me.

News: despite resolving quite solidly to study diligently, I’ve succeed admirably only at putting off that studying by first watching Ian play Mario Sunshine, then taking a nice nap, then of course writing this blog. Shame on me, for having a final tomorrow and Tuesday, and flying out Wednesday, and not even doing something as simple as packing my bags. Guess I need some of Mom’s motivation (“If you’re bored, I know of a bathroom that needs cleaning…”).

– KF –