My Mom...

"You showed me when I was young just how to grow. You showed me everything that I should know. You showed me just how to walk without your hands. Cause Mom you always were the perfect hand." -The Perfect Fan, Backstreet Boys

"So I take the time to thank you now. Hold my head high to make you proud as I walk on through these doors into my life." -Path Beneath My Feet, Laura Spaw

I've known my mom as long as I've been alive. No, literally. I've known her longer than anyone. And she's known me longer than anyone.

I've always thought I was more like my dad. I probably am. I think I got his stubbornness and his pride. I may have gotten his "sometimes" lack of patience. I'm pretty sure I got his hairline, too.

But I know what I got from my mom without any question: her every affection and love.

On Mother's Day this weekend, people around the world will write something online to let their friends, acquaintances, family, and that guy they had a biology project with in freshman year know a secret: their mom is the world's best. And they're probably right.

But I'd like to share why my mom is the best mom I could've ever had.

Not everyone gets the opportunity to say their mom loved them with their whole heart. Some don't get to say their mother loved them with any of their heart. We all have moms after all, the women who nurtured us to birth and then saw us breathe our first breaths. Unfortunately, sometimes that's where the affection ends for some.

I'm blessed every day to say that I have a mom who took it upon herself to define herself first and foremost by the love she showered on her two boys and her husband. I'm blessed every day to say I have a mom who nurtured me every day of my childhood and is still nurturing me today as a 26-year-old. I'm blessed every day to say I have a mom who took care of me every day I was in her house and then pushed me out to write my own life and has taken care of me every day I've been gone.

My mom always wanted a girl. Until I came out wearing a blue bib, I was Margaret. Really! Martin wasn't even on the radar because I was supposed to be a girl. So they tried again, sure that the second time Mom would get her daughter to teach to paint her nails and shop with. And yet, out came Thomas, just as boy as his older brother. At the risk of a third boy, they decided to cut bait and give up the quest for a Maggie. Not to worry, Thomas and I were enough for any set of parents.

Now that doesn't mean that Mom has failed to surrounded herself with girls. Or at least she's tried her best to. Rare has been the day over the past 26 years that she has not inquired about her oldest son's adventures (and often misadventures) in love. And just in case I'm not looking hard enough, she's usually around with names of eligible young ladies she's met at any which place.

I used to think that my mom wanted me to get married as fast as I could so she could have a grandchild to play with. Talk about pressure!

I know better now. My mom has wanted me to find someone for the past 26 years because she wants me to be the happiest that I can be. She wants my life to know the deepest love I can know, the kind of love she gets to share with my dad and with us. With her family! When I've been in love (and there have been precious few occasions) she's been the biggest cheerleader. She's encouraged and supported and challenged. And when my heart's been broken, hers has broken as well. Not because I failed, but because her baby boy was broken.

I've kept in touch with one of those ex's. And it was one Mom liked. This particular friend and I actually spent a couple hours catching up on the comings and goings of the past year a few days ago via Skype. As the conversation went on, it turned to her new significant other. Apparently as they were talking, she'd been asked, "Where did you learn to love so well?" In quite possibly the most humbling compliment I've ever been paid, she told me, "They asked where I learned to love and I told them by the way you loved me."

It was the most honored I've ever felt (particularly in light of all the ways I've screwed up loving people over the years.) However, she misplaced the blame. What she meant to say was, "I learned to love from your mom."

That's because everything I know about love, I learned from my mom and my dad. I learned from the ways that they sacrificed so much every day to make my life and Thomas' a little bit better. I learned from the ways that they hugged us when we were low and celebrated with us when we were high. I learned from the ways Mom always made us feel like we were the most important people in the world! I want to be a great husband and father one day because I want to do my best to love someone like my mom has loved me.

When I was a freshman at Furman I made a decision, and at Easter that year I let my mom in the secret. I was going to drop out. Nothing I was learning was worthwhile, and I was going to go to Africa and end world hunger. That's right! Me. Hunger. It was on, and it was way more worthy of my time than sitting in class.

We were sitting in our rec room watching A Walk to Remember after Easter Brunch. It was her choice of movie, but I figured that was OK since it was one of the few days of the year I got to spend with my parents while I was at school in South Carolina. And who are we kidding, I love a good chick flick too.

Casually, and with so much fear my toes were curled up in my socks, I muttered, "Mom, I'm dropping out. This college thing isn't for me."

She didn't cry. She didn't yell. She didn't argue. She asked.

"What makes you say that?"

"Has something happened?"

"Is everything ok?"

And I told her about my plot. And she smiled. She said we'd talk about it later.

When I got back to campus two days later there was a two-page letter waiting for me in my campus mailbox from home. My mom had written me a letter. And in two pages she explained why I couldn't drop out. No, it wasn't because I'd be throwing away my future. It wasn't because there was so much invested in it. It was because there was something for me to learn there. And there was something that others needed to learn from me.

My mom taught me to soak up every experience I could. She taught me there was some lesson to learn from every interaction I had. And she taught me that no matter where I was, no matter how menial or how challenging or how far, there was something for me to offer the world in that place. She taught me that my presence mattered. And she knew that that was the case for me at Furman.

My mom is the most courageous person I know. A month before Christmas, when I was off at college, I found out Mom had been laid off by the Tennessean. The death of print news has been devastating to many, but it was particularly hard for my mom. Not just because she lost her job. But the thing she loved most, writing and reporting the news, was dying.

I've never been fired or let go, but I know it killed my mom. Her passion, the thing she loved to do, got taken away from her.

But she taught Thomas and I from our earliest memories to chase our dreams. She told Thomas and I we could be the President of the United States if we wanted to be. And then she taught us by chasing her own dreams. She took most of our savings (with Dad's blessing, of course) and started the Brentwood Homepage, an online newspaper for our suburb, with friend and business partner Kelly.

It was risky. It was scary. It had no real reason for optimism other than a whimsical dream. But she went for it. She worked longer hours than I could possibly imagine, with little return. The staff was never big enough to do all the things they wanted and the revenue was never what they dreamed.

But she kept fighting. And she kept writing. And she kept following her dreams. And after five years and two additional Homepages, the dream was standing on its own two feet and she decided she had given it all she had and decided to walk away.

But don't mistake walking away for failing. She built something with her own two hands and taught her two sons to fight for what we believe in. She taught us to dream impossible dreams and not to give up when the impossibilities stack up high. She followed her passion to the very end and made it the best she could make it.

My parents always tell me they have no idea how I turned out the way that I have. They can't imagine that between the two of them they would have produced a youth minister who is living in Texas. They can't imagine that their son would be two years into a seminary degree.

I've never understood what was so hard to believe. In his first letter in the New Testament, John wrote that God is love. It's a pretty radical statement really. God is so much bigger than we could possibly get our heads around, and yet here is John identifying God in a single word.

Well if God is love, then my parents have given me such a clear picture of what God is like that I can't fathom being caught up in any other story. If God is love, then I have my mom to blame for the ways that God has captured my heart and the ways God has drawn me to love others. If God is love, my mom has exemplified that picture better than any son could ask for. If God is love, then my mom has soaked me in God's grace in wave after wave for 26 years.

Over Thanksgiving my mom and I went through hours worth of old pictures from my childhood. What I saw over and over again were pictures of Mom with her two boys smiling from ear to ear. What I saw was Mom holding us while we cried or smiling with us while we jumped. What I saw was love. What I saw were the fingerprints of God.

My mom goes by many titles. Susan. Daughter. Sister. Wife. Aunt. Boss. Friend. Editor (she'll probably edit this blog in fact.) Writer. Entrepreneur. Social media consultant. Williamson County Impact Award winner (yeah, she's kind of a big deal!)

But today, the only title I care about is Mom. It's the most important one to me. And it's the one she's best at. It's the one she's poured the most into. It's the one that has made my life what it is today. And it's the one I thank God for every day!

They say we don't need a celebration like Mother's Day because moms should be celebrated every day. They're absolutely right. But they're not. It's probably because the work of being a mom is the most selfless, sacrificial expression of love the world's ever known. There's no thanks in picking up a gaggle of boys from baseball practice. There's no thanks in washing a cut through the neosporin-induced screams of a toddler. There's no thanks in hugging a son after he didn't make the cut and telling him she still loves him. There's no thanks in prepping a dinner after she's worked harder all day than anyone else in the house. There's no thanks in letting a son follow a call to Texas even if it means he'll be further away.

These are just a handful of the innumerable things I need to thank my mom for. These are the things she's done for 26 years. These are the things I've taken for granted for almost all of those 9,584 days I've known her. And these are the reasons she's irreplaceable. These are the reasons that, even if just for one day, I remember just how perfect my mother is. I love you Mom, today and every day!

forever unfinished...