Just For Me

Hey,
This is Faith, Sarah's oldest daughter. Today is my Mommy's birthday, but we're celebrating without her.  Mommy is currently on a trip to Romania.  For her birthday this year, she is sharing the greatest gift that she's ever been given.
My mom has always been a gifted speaker.  She tells this great story about an early experience with public speaking.  She was so overcome with stage fright that she burst into tears, but then she worked that into her presentation.  She received a perfect score from both her instructor and her peers.  I remember as a child that my mother taught a Bible class at Chattanooga Bible Institute.  I know she loved it and that it always seemed to be a full class to me.  She was starting to be invited to seminars and speaking engagements all over the country.  It was kind of impressive, even to a little kid.
I also remember that one day she wasn't teaching at CBI any more.  She stopped leaving for weekends.  Instead, she was homeschooling, grinding her own wheat to make homemade bread and buying farm cheese in bulk (blech)
You see, God had closed the screen door to her speaking career and turned her face back toward the inside of her home.  This is how important I am to God: he took an amazing, beautiful, powerful speaker and asked her to dedicate 30 years of her life Just.To.Me.  If Mommy hadn't paused her career and put us first, there is absolutely no telling how many lives she might have touched.  But God gave four (often ungrateful, sniveling, mealy-mouthed, disrespectful, and totally undeserving) children to her and asked her to make us her priority.  AND.SHE.DID!
Nearly a year ago, Mom's life changed.  Her youngest child was preparing to leave the nest and Mommy was invited to speak.  And not in the next county over, either.  My mommy went to the Czech Republic. That screen door that God closed when he turned her back towards her home is now being held so wide open that it's like a vacuum sucking her out into the springtime of her career.
I marvel that God deemed me important enough to give me such an awesome Mommy.  But then, what can you expect from the kind of God that sacrifices his own son, JUST FOR ME.