Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

My blog has functioned as a place to record family celebrations and events. Birthdays are celebrated (the first one was in 2007-here), and travels and special events of all kinds are documented. With family in different states, not to mention continents, it seems to be a convenient way to communicate what is going on in our lives.

So what better place to wish a very Happy Mother's Day to my Mom.

In so many ways, she is the person most responsible for loving and nurturing me, and laying the groundwork to make me the person I am today.

The picture above is an early picture of us together.

Here is a picture with us and the next generation, taken at Estes Park last year.

This is a picture of Mom and her sister, whose family was always very close to ours.

As I was pondering this blog post, some ideas came to mind about the divine and motherhood. Much religious doctrine recognizes and proclaims God as father and makes much of this fatherhood in relation to his children. Yet it seems to me there is a great motherhood of God as well, a nurturing, nourishing, inspiring, hovering presence that corresponds to the female side of the human being (the Adam). Consider the following:

Genesis 1:27 And God created man (Heb. the Adam) in his image. In the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them.

From this we learn that the image of God is made up of both male and female elements. Without one or the other, the image of God is simply incomplete. So without an image of the motherhood of God, as well as the fatherhood, our understanding of God is incomplete.

The idea is further buttressed in Genesis 5:1, 2. When (lit. in the day) God created man (Adam), he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when (lit. in the day) they were created, he called their name Adam.

I am thankful that, just as my father gave me a model of God in that role, so my mother gave me a wonderful example of a heavenly mother, watching over, nurturing and loving me always.