The Ministry of Motherhood.

I’d like to take the opportunity to write a more personal blog than usual, for the sole reason that I want to make this as public as possible. Please excuse my momentary digression from the lyrical poetic format my blogs usually take.

As many of you know, my oldest brother Kristian passed away on January 2nd of this year. Tomorrow marks the first Mother’s Day since he left us. What a lot of you don’t know is that my mum is incredible. If you are lucky enough to have her wisdom in your life, consider yourself as blessed as I do. I have no doubt if it were not for my mother’s tenacious, unrelenting prayers to heaven I would not be standing today in more ways than one.

A mother does what needs to be done. She forgives wrongs and very rarely takes things personally in her relationship with her children. She shows an earthly figure of how our father in heaven longs to care for his children.

When my brother was diagnosed, my mum did what needed to be done. She rallied the armies in heaven and fought in the spiritual realm for my brother’s very life. She lost countless hours of sleep, cried countless tears, celebrated each milestone and victory with sincere joy and took each blow with unflinching faith in God’s plan.

Not many people know but my mum was there for nearly all of the three final months of Kristian’s life. She went without a second thought into a heartbreaking situation – watching your firstborn son fading from this life into the next without so much as a moment’s pause.

I sat with my mum as my brother wept in agony – he wanted more than anything to see Jesus and be free from the excruciating physical pain he was enduring. His feet, hands and scalp burned, neuropathy pain searing to each extreme in his body. I sat with my mum as she literally washed my brother’s feet, massaging away the pain as best as she could, with a commitment and heartache I know I will not understand until I am a mother myself.

I watched as my mother washed his feet literally with her own tears as my brother’s heart-wrenching sobs filled an otherwise silent room. His head in my lap, I massaged his aching scalp, exchanging silent glances with my mum as we did our best to chase the awfulness of Kristian’s reality away.

My mum sat for months in the hospital with Kristian. Her presence not only freed Kristian’s wife Rachel to take care of their two sons, but I believe brought peace that surpasses all understanding to Kristian in the final weeks of his life.

My mum sat with Kristian and Rachel as Kristian took the hand of Jesus and walked into eternity.

My mum cleaned kitchens, made lunches, sorted through junk, held our family together all at the same time as mourning her son’s death. Because that’s what mums do.

Mums are there when everyone else isn’t. They weep when we weep, they rejoice when we win, they soothe our aches and calm our fears. They wash our feet in tears out of a heavenly act of servitude.

Tomorrow is my mum’s first Mother’s Day without my brother and although presents are lovely I would like to publicly honour my mum, Sandy Anderson. The woman who tirelessly and with unflinching faith held my world together as it fell apart. The woman who didn’t want to spoil my engagement with the news that we were losing the fight. The woman who I know will continue to pray my life through it’s valleys and rejoice with me in my victories.

The woman who changed the world by raising her children.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mum. You’re doing it right.