Today is not only Easter; it’s also my mom’s birthday. I’m grateful to actually be with her today to celebrate both occasions.

Let me tell you a little about my mom: My stubbornness and hers often bumped into each other when I was younger, but I have a fuller appreciation for her (and the stubbornness!) as I get older. She has always been there for me. She was with me for Lamaze classes when I was expecting Will and his dad was deployed, and she helped me through a traumatic experience giving birth to him. She was there for me when Caroline was born and her dad was deployed. She’s been with me through all of Caroline’s surgeries, my wisdom teeth removal when I was thirty and home alone with two little ones, and my recent move back to Georgia. She’s calm in a crisis and never lets me feel sorry for myself. (That has irritated me a time or two, but it has been a gift.) She has a gift for serving in practical ways. She loves Jesus and her family. She makes things lovely.

She hates having her picture taken, so it’s hard to find any of her.

She loves my children well. She has always been interested in the details of their lives — knowing who their friends are, their activities, their interests. She and my dad have traveled around the world to see us and know their grandchildren. They’ve missed lots of the daily things because we were far away, but they have tried hard to be there for the big ones. And as Will has been at college in Georgia while we were living in Europe, they’ve gone up for his birthday every year to take him out to dinner. Efforts like that make a family a family.

I love my mom more than I can say, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.