Day 151 - What an Encouragement!

This is a photo of my two older girls. It was taken this past summer at their Aunt Mary's home in Indiana.

Remember what an awful day I had yesterday, feeling like such an awful mother?

Well, last night, as my oldest daughter and I were walking the aisles of Safeway and filling the cart with groceries, my eldest said to me that she keeps a journal at school, and that yesterday's topic in her journal was to write about someone who has had a great influence on her life. She then said that the person she wrote about was ME!

I could've died! She then went on to say that I really am a great mom, and she loves how close we are and how easily we can talk about things together. She even said that we're great friends.

Wow! I felt so wonderfully blessed by those words! And then she went on to be her usual 15 year old self by talking about a classmate who passed gas really loud in English class. Silly girl! Teenagers, I have found, can be terrible and marvelous all in the same day.

After loading up the cart with groceries, making sure we got everything necessary for the refrigerator and cupboards for my time away next week when I take care of my mother post-mastectomy, and after we drove home in the sub-zero temps and unloaded all of those bags of groceries and had a late dinner, my middle daughter spontaneously came up to me, hugged me, and said that I was the BEST mother in the whole wide world!

I couldn't believe my ears! Both girls in one night!? I was floored...and on Cloud Nine.

And as if that wasn't enough encouragement, a friend of mine called to ask about my mother's upcoming surgery, and then stated that I was one of the best mothers she knows!

Wow.

Three encouraging people in one day.

Thank you, Father, for those encouraging words about my mothering abilities...especially after such a sad day when I'd felt that I was such a failure.

Lord, you know how hard I try to be the best mother I can be. In fact, that is my prayer almost daily. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sending those encouraging statements my way just when I needed them most. Amen.