painting...with mom

Memorial day was yesterday.  A time to remember all those who've served our country, fighting to keep us free.  Apparently, it's also "national BBQ day" and "home improvement day."  Whatever you want to call it, it's really a day to spend with family. 

This year, my family was scattered.  Daddy and Josiah are in Uganda for another week.  Sarah left for church youth camp at the beach.  Michael was working.  So that means, Mommy and I were left to our lonesome.  We decided to make a day of it.  Mommy has been in a painting mood, and after 3 years of living in our house with every wall the same color as the day we moved it...a surprisingly pretty brownish/tan color...it's about time to add some color!   Sarah's room got painted last week (teal blue with a black chalkboard wall and a pink bathroom).  Now, it's my turn!

After mowing the grass (which, if you know me this won't surprise you, I did barefoot) and dropping Sarah off at the church, we headed off to Home Depot for paint!  We started our just going to paint my bathroom, but after finding a color we really liked, the half-bath downstairs was soon about to get colorized.  The picture shows the colors.  The color for my bathroom is the lightest green shown (Green Shimmer).  The color for the half-bath downstairs is the coral color second from the top (Sahara Sun).  The lightest blue color is for my bedroom, which hasn't been gotten to yet.

But enough about meaningless paint (although, both rooms did turn out really well).  The whole point of this blog is to express how wonderful my mom is and how thankful I am to have her as my mother and friend.  We've never, at least not to my memory, had a big strain in our relationship.  Sure we've had times where we fight or disagree, especially since we're both opinionated people and I've been a stupid teenage girl with hormones, back-talk and just plain sin raging.  However, as I've gotten older (and hopefully more mature), our relationship has grown from just mother/daughter to friend/friend. 

We genuinely have fun together as we do this crazy thing called life together.  We talk about anything, and I seriously value her opinion and advice.  She worked her way through college (yes, I followed in both her and my dad's footsteps by going to UGA), worked to put both her and my dad through seminary in Chicago, stayed at home to be her husband's helper as he was a pastor for 18 years in WI and home-schooled us four kids most of our lives.  She has glorified God is the seemingly ordinary tasks of life, found great joy in ministering to women of all ages (which is one of her passions in ministry), and has raised us kids in the knowledge and love of the Lord.  From her example, she is the reason I myself desire to be a wife and mother one day.  She has shown me Jesus in ways I can't even begin to describe.

Our relationship is deep not because we share DNA and have lived together for 22 years, but because we share the common bond of Jesus Christ.  It is only by the grace and forgiveness of Christ that we can have the relationship that we do.  I have truly been blessed with a mother and friend that I can be real with, cry with, laugh with, and trust with my life.  She seeks Jesus with everything and prays always.  I am thankful for the legacy of Jesus love that both her and my father have given me.  I am blessed because of their lives!


"But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments."   Psalms 103:17-18