the strongest person i know.

I've been really blessed to get to know my mom better this year. I don't know what it is. But when I started coming home to work in the fall we started having these conversations. About anything. And everything. We'd sit and expound on life until three in the morning. Which I tend to do too often with people. But in this instance it was so different. First because my mom usually will not stay up past ten. And secondly because we've never been all that close--at least not to the level at which I willing provided so much information about my life and my thoughts and my heart. And certainly not to the level at which she'd do the same. I've learned good things. I've learned my mom was hot. Like a serious babe. Haha. And I've learned that she was and still is fun. I've learned that she's smarter than I give her credit. And I've learned what makes her sad.

My mother is without a doubt the strongest person I know. Not many people have gone through her heartache. Few people have lost so much. I look and she the brokenness around her and I am completely overwhelmed. I mean, I have a hard time stomaching even the thought. Yet through it all, my mother is a rock. Sure, she cries at every movie, wedding, soccer game, magic trick...ha, everything. But she has so much joy and shows so much support for the people around her. She constantly outpours love--love that can only stem from a heart so deeply rooted in Christ. Seriously, her faith is amazingly strong. She is a prayer warrior (better than kung fu panda) and she reminds me to look to God when He is the last thing on my mind. People learn so much from her, and there is no one I know who doesn't adore her, especially her students who absolutely bask in her awesomeness. I had some of her kids as campers this summer and I couldn't get a word in edgewise the way they'd just go on about how cool she is. That. That is cool. She teaches. And they learn. And I learn so much from her--about love, about joy, about how to treat people, about life and what's important and about my Savior. I am so extremely blessed to have such a mother who is such an amazing woman of God.

And that's why it's been so cool to get to know her. Because I'm starting to finally get it. The way everything she does goes back to her Savior. And the way she lives it better than anyone I know. It's so...organic, the way she loves. She doesn't care about what people think or what's cool or what she'll get by what she's doing. She loves because it's right. And because her heart is about as big as her basket collection.

People have always told me that I'm like my mother. Always. And to be honest, until recently I always cringed at the thought. My mom is a little spacy. She shrieks often. In high school, she got on my nerves. But my mom is an incredible woman. Truly incredible. And I am positively humbled and overjoyed to know that any bit of her is seen in me.