To all women: I wish you a beautiful day filled with a deep sense of self awareness and worth.
I am thinking of my mother today, of her many beautiful gifts and how she blazed a trail through life unlike anything I've ever seen. She was strong, industrious, capable, intelligent, wise, humble, faithful, creative, selfless, steady, and endowed with an ability to love that did not run for cover, ever. I love and miss her deeply, and know someday I will see her again.
I am fortunate to have many wonderful women in my life. I have a mother-in-law who is in a league of her own. She is an amazing example in every respect and I am so grateful for her influence upon me and my daughters.
I love my sisters and my sisters-in-law. I love my dear friends. I love the little girls who used to be in my Sunday school class and who still come sit on my lap during church. I smile when they come, because I've often remarked that after having had three girls of my own, I wish someone would just hand me three more. And nearly every Sunday, that is exactly what happens.
I love being a woman. I love the experiences that come to me through the roles I've been given as an individual, a daughter, a sister, a wife, mother, aunt, and friend.
I love the beauty I see in this world, how deeply I care about people and how this capacity to care can bring both great happiness and inevitable suffering. I try not to mind. I try to embrace it all and feel that my happiness is made more poignant by sorrow, and that sorrow is made more bearable by the sense of wonder I feel at being alive on this earth.
I hope you know I consider you a friend, dear reader. In most cases I believe we don't technically know each other. But then again we do. There are many similiarities in the human experience. There are many common goals. And my heart seems to stretch far and wide when I think about people everywhere, wondering who they are, wondering about their stories, wishing I could understand better and help better and make more of a difference. In some way I sense this quality is an attribute both of myself as an individual and as a woman.
I hope you have a lovely day. I hope you sense something deeply meaningful and important within yourself. One belief I hold dear is the worth of each person, how great it must be, how much each one matters. I hope you feel it, dear reader. I hope it stays with you through thick and thin.
Happy, happy Mother's Day. xoxo