Day Sixteen: Someone Who Inspires Me

No....I'm not going to write about Carrie. Although she does. But I feel like I'm starting to look like a creepy stalker.

Different people have inspired me at different times in my life, for different reasons.

Right now, at this time in my life, the person who inspires me most, is my mother.

My mom hates getting her picture taken, especially by me, because she knows it will end up on the internet somewhere. But Lucy took this picture when we were out to breakfast one day, and it's probably one of my favorites. That's my mom....well...her hand anyway.

My mom did a lot of incredible things when she was raising us. I could talk about how, as long as I can remember, she worked or volunteered as a Church Treasurer of some sort. That in it's self is amazing. It's not easy being a women in any business, especially in ministry. And she balanced her home life and ministry beautifully. Actually, I should probably ask her more about how she did that, because it seems to be one of the hardest things.

I could talk about how my mother never once spanked us, and yet, somehow put the "fear of God" in us. We where good kids (as far as I remember) and still respected our parents. I should probably ask her more about that too...I wonder how we where as toddlers...

But there is one thing that inspires me most about my mom. It's probably stupid really, but I just find it amazing. You see, every morning of my childhood, and teenagehood (and honestly, probably my adulthood) my mother has been awake before me. Showered and dressed for the day, eating breakfast, drinking coffee and doing her devotions. This was so normal for me growing up, in fact, I barely saw my mom in her PJ's. Only those late nights when I was scared of the storm and snuck in her room do I remember ever seeing her not dressed and put together. I'm sure when I was just a baby, and my siblings where just toddlers, my mom slept when we slept and woke up when we did. But ever since I remember, she's been up before me. Somehow, this is so hard for me. Maybe if Lucy slept until 10...no...even then, I'd sleep til 10. And most days, I look like this all day:

(This is another Lucy photo...she's so good!)

What you say? This isn't that bad? It's like 1 o'clock in this picture. I'm still in what I wore to bed, and obviously have not even brushed my hair. I have this crazy hippie "It doesn't matter what I look like" attitude, but for goodness sakes, take a shower!

It's not so much the being dressed, it's the fact that every morning, no matter how early we got up for school or whatever, she got up before us and DID HER DEVOTIONS. That is cool. I've been trying to get to that point. In the morning I make Lucy breakfast and let her eat it and watch TV or play with something while I sit at the table, with my coffee and my bagel, and do my devotions. Almost every morning I think of my dear mother, all dressed and ready for the day, with her coffee and oatmeal (she was slightly heather than I) doing her devotions in the kitchen. It's something that never ment anything to me, until I was a mother myself and realized how much it ment. I want this. I want to be this. I want to shower before noon everyday. Sigh...baby steps.

My dad is pretty cool too, but he'd need a whole different post. And pictures...oh I'd need some pictures. But luckily, one of us kids already wrote a beautiful blog post about our Dad. So read that. And then be jealous about how awesome my parents are.