I don’t know what ran through your mind when you changed a dirty diaper for the umpteenth time or when you were exhausted from staying up all night with a colicky child but still had to show up for your family, homeschool, prep dinner, and do all the things your job as a mama required. Because yes, while the world might try to tell you that motherhood is not a real job, it absolutely is.
During those mundane moments and those days that looked the same in and out, did you wonder if it mattered? Did you get discouraged as you tried to rock a crying baby to sleep to no avail? Did you cry in silence, wondering if you were failing as a mother?
Did you know you’re my role model?
When I grow up and have children of my own, I want to step into the role of motherhood with as much bravery and dedication as you did. Like you, I want to treat it as a holy calling.
As a mother of now teenagers and young adults, you’re not done being our mother, and you never will be. But you made it.
You made it past the dirty diapers, the countless sleepless nights with crying babies, and the early days where the routine looked the same in and out. You’ve said goodbye to rocking your newborns to sleep, exchanging it instead for hours talking with your teens and young adults about what’s going on in our world.
I know you couldn’t see it then, but you shaped us during our formative years. You encouraged our creativity and play, taught us the value of hard work, and challenged us to chase our dreams.
And those years when it looked like nothing seemed to change? When you were changing diapers, folding laundry for the second time because we’d unfolded it in our play, prepping meals . . . whether you were thriving or barely getting by as a mom, you chose to show up and love us anyway, and you were planting seeds. You taught us to be faithful even when it’s hard.
Did all the mundane matter? As your daughter, I’m here to tell you that it did.
by Shannon Whitmore 
by Sandy Brannan 
by Anna-Louise Osborne 
