Reflections on Mom

This morning I have been looking through my mom's Bible. One of the many things in her Bible is a slip of paper with lots of quotes or little sayings that she liked. Reading through them, I can see that her life really reflected these little bits of advice. The first says "The happiest people are not those who have the best of everything but those who make the best of whatever they have." During my parents first years in Bolivia, they sure didn't have the best of everything. Dirt floors, no washing machine, an outhouse...they really lived on very little. But my mom learned to make the best of everything and came to love it. Another quote in her Bible says "If you're conflicted about whether to be right or be kind...be kind!" If ever there was a disagreement about something trivial, my mom would just say "oh, ok", as if the other person was always right even when she knew they were not. And most of the time it was her who was right. The next one says "Nothing is a bad as it first seems and nothing is as good as it first seems." In my entire 19 years with her, I never once saw my mom lose her temper. She never yelled at us out of anger. She took everything calmly and I always admired her for that. There are a lot more of these quotes, but one that really sticks out to me is "We may not be able to build the future for our children, but we can build our children for the future." I can't think of a much better way to bring up kids than the way my parents raised me and Peter and Jonny. I hope one day I can be the same kind of mother that my mom was to us.