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Honoring Mom…

My folks have been in town for the last two days. They came to attend the stage production of War Horse last night (the tickets were a birthday gift from my brother and I) and then celebrate Mom’s birthday with a family dinner this evening.

I’ve said this before, but I am incredibly thankful for my parents. Even when they arrive at my house with other things on their agenda, they still find ways to do things that help me out. Yesterday, they arrived around noon and I came home and visited with them for a few minutes. Then I headed back to the church for a number of meetings throughout the afternoon. Mom texted just before she and Dad were going to head to Toronto for the show, and I made it home before they left (I love living next door to the church).

I walked in the house to find that they had vacuumed, tidied up, and mopped the floor for me. To me this is one of the greatest kindnesses in the world. Especially on a week when I am feeling ill and don’t have a lot of energy for doing that stuff myself.

My Mom is awesome. She is my confidante, my cheerleader, my person to bounce ideas off of…if you’ve heard a sermon of mine that you liked, chances are that my Mom  helped me focus and form my ideas during one of our nightly phone calls. She is the person I call when things are falling apart and the person I call when things are falling together.

I know I am extremely blessed to have the kind of relationship I have with both my folks. But since Mom’s birthday is coming up in just a few days (Dec 1st…we never celebrate any birthday on its actual DAY in our family!), I thought it would be good to take a few minutes to honor my Mom today.

Mom, you rule, even when you drive me crazy, and I am blessed to be your daughter.

Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Deuteronomy 5:16 NLT

 

Anticipating visitors…

So this week is the week for visitors at my house. I have a friend who will be spending Sunday and Monday with me, my folks are dropping their dog and my brother off on Wednesday before thy head out of town, and then on Friday my folks will be back and we will celebrate my Dad’s birthday.

In anticipation of this I have been cleaning. I am not big fan of cleaning, and usually I need the fact that visitors are coming in order to motivate me. It’s funny how I can be really motivated in some things and totally unmotivated in others. It’s also funny that having some people come to visit – who are family and have seen my house at its worst – is all the motivation I need.

I am not sure if that says something unhealthy about how I want to represent myself as more of a neat freak than I am, or if it says something good about the fact that I want guests in my home to experience a clean, comfortable environment.

I like to hope it is the latter (though I suspect it might be the former). I like to hope that having a sense of Christian hospitality has something to do with it.

Whatever the case, what is certain is that I will be spending most of the day tomorrow in preparation for my guests between shopping, cooking, cleaning, and other chores). Two blessings are obvious to me in this: first that I have a home & food to share; and second that I have people to share them with. God is good!