Things I learned from my mother

Today is Mother’s day. For the past week, I’ve seen numerous shout-outs to mothers everywhere. Memes, cartoons, t-shirts, flowers–they all contain messages of love to mothers. Last night alone, I couldn’t surf Facebook for five seconds without seeing someone wishing their mother a happy mother’s day. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not putting mothers or mother’s day down. I’m just saying that mother’s day is popular.

In honor of Mother’s day, I am going to list things that I learned from my mother.

1. Crafting

My mother has a love of crafting, and she passed those skills on to me. Thanks to her, I can sew, quilt, embroider (sort of), and make rugs. Thanks to her, I will always have too many quilts in the house, my pants will always be the correct length, and I will always be able to sew buttons back onto my shirts. I can make baby quilts to give away, and make stockings for Christmas.  These kinds of things are skills that I value and that I personally plan to pass on to my children.

2. Cooking

My husband jokes that whenever I make meatloaf, he gains five pounds. Now, I don’t know if that’s true, but I am a decent cook. Well, that wouldn’t be able to possible if my mother didn’t love to cook. We couldn’t afford to go out to eat much when I was a kid, so mom cooked.  Like sewing, cooking is a skill that I am determined to pass on–to my husband first.

3. Gardening

This one I got not only from my mom, but my dad and grandma as well. I grew up on a farm, and we were able to supplement almost half our groceries from the things we grew. Now that I’m grown and looking forward to a house of my own, I plan on putting in a garden. Hopefully, I’ll be as good a gardener as her. If my flowerpots are any indication, though, I have a ways to go before that happens.

4. A love for storytelling

I’m pretty sure I got my love for storytelling for my mom. Anyone who knows her knows she loves to talk. I grew up listening to her tell stories of her childhood, and to this day I still love listening to those stories–even though I’ve heard them a million times. Now that I’m grown, I do the same thing.

5. A love for the Lord

My mom loves the Lord. One of the stories I heard growing up was of her coming to the Lord. A church, I listened to her sing praises to the Lord with gusto and enthusiasm. Whenever she speaks of the Lord or various Bible stories, you can hear her love in her voice. And going to church was never an option–unless we had a hundred degree temperature, we were going to church. Period. I may have chosen to follow the Lord for myself, but without my mom’s single-minded determination to pass that love on to her children, I wouldn’t have made the choice. Of all the things I received from my mother, this is probably the most important one.