Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you that are mothers, dream of being one, have one or are married to one. I pray that it is a blessed day for all of you.

I went looking for various mother-related quotes and poems today. There are lots of great ones out there! This one stood out to me the most:

"We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves."
~Henry Ward Beecher, from Mother's Day Celebration.

I think these thirteen words speak volumes. We don't know it, we can't know it, until we have a reference point from which to measure it. There are times that things our parents do seem so very mean to us as children. They said "no" when we wanted this toy or that cookie or whatever. They said yes to painful things the doctors would do to us. So many examples that, in the mind of a child, are mean.

But, we grow to have babies of our own, in some cases, and we see that the "no" wasn't always the answer they wanted to give, there were circumstances making it necessary. Or, they gave it for our own good, not because they were trying to keep us from being happy. We see that there are times our children have to endure painful medical procedures that we would gladly take for them instead if it would help them.

There's more to being a mama than baking cookies and giving toys and good night kisses. It is a life of sacrificial love that we gladly choose to give and we learn so much more about our own mamas each time that we do.

Happy Mother's Day!