Tomorrow is Mothers Day and I’m taking a moment to reflect on four mothers. First, my daughter and the mother of my only grandchild. Heidi is a caring, courageous, committed mother. Parenting has never been an easy job, but I think it has gotten increasingly difficult. My wife, Cindy, is the next mother I mention. In addition to becoming my wife twenty years ago, she also became a step-mom of four. She became a birth mother latter in life than most women and has proven herself to have what it takes on every front. My mother and her mother (Grandma Lehman) are the other two. If my mother hadn’t died of cancer when I was in junior high and was still living, I believe she would be more of a loving older friend than a “mother-in-law” to Cindy. I can imagine her smiling with pride at my children. I expect she would be to my children what her mother was to me. Grandma Lehman’s life had been challenging enough to make her strong, but it had not turned her cold and bitter. What I received from her, if pictured as a food, would be bread instead of cake.

I have other “mothers” by blood and by marriage. Then there are the spiritual mothers who have added light to my path. “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about” (Hebrews 11:32) . . . Bonnie, Sarah, Bertha, Ruthanna, Emily, Trudy, Hazel, and more.