Happy Birthday Mommy! :)

MOM! I LOVE you! :) I am so incredibly blessed to have you as my Momma'...I have learned so very much from you -- I don't think you can even imagine!

"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies....She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue....Her chidren arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.' Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."

The Lord is doing so much in our lives right now, and I am so excited as to what He has done so far, and what I know He's going to do in the future -- in ALL of our lives!

Mom, one thing I'll always think of when I think of you are your favorite Scriptures...which are high on my favorite's list too! Here are just a few of them:

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." (Isaiah 30:15b)

"If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?" (Jeremiah 12:5)

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." (Psalm 126:5-6)

"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127:1)

"'Even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing -- grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God." (Joel 2:12-14)

"I will restore the years the locusts have eaten..." (Joel 2:25)

"...To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." (Isaiah 61:3)

"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

Mom, these Scriptures have always spoken to me in a huge way, too. These are a few of the commonly-quoted Scriptures I grew up with, and I have grown to love them, and take enormous comfort in them! I have always loved reading your Bible, because half of it is marked up -- and what is marked up is usually what speaks to me the most, too ;)

Mom, I love you so much and I am so blessed to be your daughter.

I hope you have a great rest of the day, and a wonderful year ahead!

Love ya!~

~Noelle

~~~

Years are lost on the wind, like stray embers from a fire

Remnants of smoke give testament to a love that never tires.

A million memories light up the road that she has traveled,

Along with faded snapshots of a woman, once a child.

Everyday she adds pages to the life she's made her own

An endless quilt of patches, tattered and then re-sewn.

Life has no perfect number, to which we can assign,

A moment or an afternoon that makes an entire life.

It's a brief slideshow of pictures forgotten and then replayed

Like the first time she read the Bible, or knelt down to pray

There's the day that she let her childhood slip into the past,

Beautiful in white—she gave her hand to a love that still lasts.

She watched her son's first at bat, her daughter's first ballet,

I envision the first tear she cried over dreams that never came.

Her laugh is louder and stronger, every day she truly gives,

Which adds depth and color to the quality of life she lives.

Fifty diamonds sparkle, each gem a cornerstone to shine,

Building blocks that create a window through passing time.

Embrace the moments that made you who you are today,

Because, dear friend, I wouldn't want a mother any other way.

--Megan Marie Munroe