The Real Steel Magnolia

It's Mother's Day - and this year more than others I find myself thinking of my own mother. I have always thought of my mom as the original "Steel Magnolia" - it's what we love, admire and respect so much!!

Soooo - looking up the definition of steel magnolia:

steel magnolias are know for their beauty, grace and charm as well as their resourcefulness and inner strength."

This IS who my mom! She is 85 years old...

• still drives,
• teaches Sunday School,
• works in the prayer room at her church - which she has computerized,
• she still goes to art class and paints -
• she is painting a portrait of my youngest daughter,
• she IMs with me on the computer,
• does her banking and billpaying online,
• she cuts her grass with a push-mower, bags it up and hauls it to the road,
• she had been taking care of her sister one day a week until her recent death,
• she drives her friends to their doctor appts,
• she cooks and takes food for funerals of friends (at this age it is a weekly occurrence)
• she has come back from a broken hip two years ago (due to climbing up on a piece of furniture) - her attitude was that a new hip should be much better than the old one she had -
• she has been widowed twice - my dad, the love of her life, died unexpectedly when I was 13, and she was only 47.
• She raised my younger sister and I by herself - sent both of us to college.
• Her own mother was killed in an accident when she was only 8 years old.
• She lived through my dad spending years overseas during WWII, several of those not knowing what was going on with him after a serious injury.
• She lived through my older brother spending three years in VietNam.

She has such inner strength! And where does that come from? Her FAITH! Her lifelong belief in her God and Christ.

She has spent so much of her life on her knees praying for me and my family, my sister and her family, my brother and his family.

Her Bible is worn and full of notes...years of faith and believing the promises.

Several weeks ago, she attended the Beth Moore conference with my daughters and I. I am sure she was one of the oldest women out of that group of 17,000 women. It was difficult for her to climb up and down the steps of the Carolina Center, but she did it - THE BLESSING OF SHARING THIS WITH THREE GENERATIONS WAS BEYOND MEASURE!!!

So on this Mother's Day, I thank my God for the gift of Miss Pearl aka: MeMe aka: MeMaw, a true steel magnolia, and I pray to my God that I may one day be just half the steel magnolia that she is!!!