Editor’s note: We couldn’t resist publishing excerpts from the rest of our Mother’s Day submissions. Thanks to all who participated in sharing “Why I Love My Mom!” Click here for more >
I am still learning how to become a great mother day by day. Like my spiritual mom, I want to fight to seek and save the loss so all can make it to heaven with me. Like my biological mom, I want to survive in the world despite challenges and continue to persevere in giving 100% to all. Like my mother-in-law, I want to sacrifice for family against all odds. Like my friends and sisters who are mothers, I want to lead by example in service and hospitability to all. Thank you for being great examples to me! — Julie Trang, Los Angeles Church of Christ
There are two people in my life I’d like to thank. One is my mother and another is like my spiritual mother:
My biological mother I would love to thank. I am so happy that she helped me grow up into the woman I am today…I love that when she gets mad she doesn’t get even, she becomes resourceful and finds a way out. I am grateful for everyday that she gets to be in my life. Although we live far away I still feel like she’s close to me everyday. God’s taught me how to love my mother from far away and how her spirit can always be with you…
I also have to thank my spiritual mother: Janet McDonald. Janet helps me cope with being anxious all the time and helps me become resourceful. She teaches me about how God’s grace is sufficient in my life even when I don’t see it. Janet shows me through her example how to be giving and hospitable in a godly way. She helped me with my hopeless thought processes and helped me earn my driver’s license last year. She’s an amazing woman of God and I cannot wait for more memories to come! — Juliann Garza, Five Valleys Church of Christ, Missoula, Montana
Karina Winje is a woman unlike any other in the world. I am so grateful for the mother she has been to my siblings and me. As a mother of three it’s not hard to imagine that she is a hard worker. On top of her immeasurable service to our family, she is a high level manager for a global engineering firm. She is one of the most generous and giving people that I know and has set an example of benevolence that has shaped who I am…
She has been a loving faithful wife to my father for what will be 28 years this summer. Through twelve moves all over the country, three children, an adoption, three dogs, a cat, countless fish and lizards, she has always been a rock for our family. Her example of sacrifice, love, and obedience to God’s word has made an impact not only on her children and family but on women all over the fellowship of churches for decades. Just over a year ago my dad was appointed as an elder in the South Bay Sector or the Coastal Region of the Los Angeles Church of Christ and my mother an elder’s wife. I can think of no more appropriate role for her to serve in the church…There is no way to adequately describe what an incredible, beautiful, hard-working, talented, loving, and all around wonderful, mother, wife, friend, daughter, sister, and disciple that Karina Winje exemplifies. I love you so, so, so, much, mom!!! — Kyle Winje, Denver Church of Christ, Colorado
When I migrated to the United States from Trinidad & Tobago in 2007, I knew that it was a huge transition and I was blessed in many ways. I was also lonely many times, missing the ministry and relationships I started to develop a year before in Trinidad. I pushed myself to build new relationships. It was difficult but God allowed me to get open with a woman who listened. I shared with her how difficult it was to build new relationships, I confessed what was on my heart and shared about my life before becoming a disciple. She listened and thanked me for sharing. I felt safe. I was then able to share even more, more about pain from my childhood and yet again she listened. She helped me to heal. She told me it was okay to cry when I was suppressing it all. I needed direction and God used her. She answered God’s call to help me.
Terri Simmons has been listening and sharing her wisdom with me ever since that day I stormed her house before women’s Bible talk. I have called her Terri Mama because she is a true friend and mother to me in many ways. God knew I needed her in my life and I am so glad that she is not only a gift to me but other sisters in the Southern Connecticut Church of Christ. — Dineille Glaze, Southern Connecticut Church of Christ
This entry is being submitted on behalf of three people (sisters) to honor our mom, Beulah Thomas. We wrote our article as three thank you letters to her.
Dear Mama, as you celebrate your retirement from 35 years of teaching, I want to celebrate you. I have many memories of you, but I remember you most in the kitchen. That’s where I watched you serve Dad and our extended families, make miracles out of leftovers and teach us baking tricks. That’s where I shared my deepest fears and sought career advice, where we all toasted the New Year every year with fake champagne. Over the counter of our kitchen is where you welcomed two of our husbands. Mom, although you may not see the magnitude, I look back to your decision to get baptized in the 1970s as the start of your daughters’ spiritual journeys. You made a choice to bring God into our home and to handle every adversity with grace, and for that, I will always be grateful. — Crystal Thomas Rudds, Chicago Church of Christ
You said, “Wear your crown.” As an awkward and painfully insecure preteen, your famous three words guided me out of my inner fears and into womanhood. Whether I was speaking in front of people, performing, or walking across a stage, I could always see you—with those three fingers waving symbolically—reminding me to wear my crown. This invisible crown stays with me today—it reminds me of spiritual truths (Proverbs 4:9, James 1:12, 2 Timothy 4:8, Revelation 3:11) and that I am wonderfully made (Psalm 130:14). I am eternally thankful for you because you showed me how to be a woman who radiates confidence from within. Love you, Ma. — Dominique Thomas, Montgomery County Church of Christ, Maryland
Mom, we have not always seen eye to eye, and I know my teenage years were “a sight.” But through it all, you stayed by me, kept praying for me, and have now become my closest support. With Dad’s help, of course, you raised three girls who struggled with self-confidence into a college professor, a lawyer, and an expert in international development. But ours are not the only lives you have touched. For 35 years, you gave high school students the courage to follow their dreams and turn failures into success. For many, you were their second or only mom. I am so proud to be your daughter and your friend. I love you! – Tiffany Thomas Smith, New Orleans Church of Christ
When I was very young my mom became a disciple. This was the beginning of her showing me the way to God. My mom has been a faithful disciple now for over 20 years. I remember my mom having quiet times with us and us praying and singing lots of songs together. She would always pray that one day her children would know God and become disciples and three out of four have so far.
I have started to see how much of Gods’ love is in her. 1 Cor 13:13 says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” This scripture characterizes my mom.
My mom is a very faithful woman. My mom prays daily for our family. She also believes in me that I can do anything I put my mind to and she always encourages me to strive higher and to not give up…My mom puts her hope and trust in God. She lays her requests out to God, having hope and trust that everything in life will work out. She strives to rely on God rather than herself, that God will take care of everything and there is no need to worry. She does everything for God and not for people and she tells me to do the same. — Stacy Menzies, Rocky Mountain Church of Christ, Calgary, Canada
