God has blessed me with three amazing sons, who I adore! He also blessed me with a legacy of amazing God-fearing women in my life that have shaped me into the wife, mother, and woman I am today. I know that "shaping" has been used to mold my young men to appreciate and respect women they encounter, but there is a longing to pass on the love of "being a woman of God" to a daughter.
My Grandmother was one of nine children growing up in the deep south. She loved to cook, play the piano and sing hymns. I had some pretty-amazing great Aunts as well! When those ladies got together at family gatherings, they loved to sing hymns and silly songs, laugh and tell stories! But mostly they LOVED God and they loved to talk about the wonderful things He had done in their lives. Their whole family became believers together. My Great-Aunt Flo was told by their family doctor that she would never be able to walk without crutches. She heard about an authentic tent revival happening in town and that people were being healed. Only a crippled nine year old daughter could
convince their father to give the revival a try! They went, and she left walking without her crutches! More miracles came when she was a young woman and her leg grew 4 inches while standing and worshipping God during a church service. Every year, my Great-Aunt Flo would sit all of us nieces and nephews down and tell us in detail how God healed and grew her leg! She even had a platform shoe to show us how much shorter her leg had been. When she passed away, her platform shoe was the only thing my mom wanted to inherit (which I have already put my request in to be next in line). That story, and many others from my Grandmother and her sisters were shared lovingly with all of us and fed our souls!
Those women shaped the kind of mother my mom would be to us. When I was growing up, each morning I knew where I would find my mom and I eagerly went to be there with her. She had a favorite spot in the house (wherever we lived), sitting by a window with a view. I would find her in her bathrobe with a cup of coffee, her bible, and prayer journal in hand. I loved to sit with her because it was there that she would share all the good things God was teaching her as she spent time with Him. I started journaling when I was in the 7th grade because of her and now have BOXES of journals myself! My mom was an open book with me and my older sister. She shared her life struggles and also how she learned to trust God with them. I appreciate her desire to know God better and how she prayed with me through all of my own life struggles. My mom has always been more to me than just my mother... she is my friend. She understands me most, listens to my heart, laughs with me, cries with me, and encourages me to be who God designed me to be.
While my mom was amazing at loving us tenaciously, she did have her work cut out for her when it came to sibling rivalry! Unfortunately, we all fought like cats and dogs growing up. But she always worked hard to help us love each other and understand each other. I think it was because of my moms diligence with us that caused my sister and I to be diligent towards each other.
We are 4.5 years apart in age, which was quite signifiant growing up. I was always the annoying little sister trying to get her attention, and she was the big bossy sister trying to escape me! LOL! Although we had an age difference, during my college years, it wasn't so dividing and we started hanging out in the same circle of friends. We ended up marrying roommates! At first this seemed so fun, until our new husbands quickly realized we had a lot of baggage between us that had never been dealt with. After being apart during my sister's college years, we had forgotten how much we didn't get along! This is where our mother and grandmother's influence comes in... the years of hearing about God's goodness and desire for healing. Because we married friends, we were around each other much more and knew that this bickering would not do. So we went to counseling together. We talked, we prayed, we fought the good fight to not give up on each other. And that determination can only come through sharing the same legacy of desiring more of God in our lives than ourselves. We married just two weeks apart, which will be 22 years ago this summer! In that time, we have shared becoming new moms together, being "the Aunts" to each other's children, praying for each other in hard times of marriage and parenting. And when my sister and her husband made the decision to adopt a child themselves, I had the privilege of having a front row seat to the ups and downs of it all. Now that we are adopting, my sister is my biggest cheerleader and supporter. We have bonded not only as sisters, but as friends!
This is what women in my family do! We tenaciously pursue what is lovely and pure to God! We seek to heal hearts and to submit more to our heavenly Father than to our fleshly desires. We live to be godly wives, mothers, daughters, aunts and sisters. I am so grateful God gave me the women in my family, and I cannot wait to pass that love on to my daughter once she arrives! Until then, we women will be praying for God to graft her into our legacy line.