Mother’s Day:  as a female, what does that mean?  Celbebrating your mother or being one yourself?  At some point is it both?  This day has been a silent, painful struggle for me for two reasons:  1)  I had an “older” mother who was 38 when I was born and 2)  I was an even older mother at 41 when our daughter was born.  Thankfully I think most churches have done away with the “honors” of youngest mothers, mothers with most children, etc.  I believe they had no idea how incredibly painful it was for women struggling against infertility.  To celebrate the woman with the most children for the woman who could not have any is a kind of pain I truly would not wish upon my worst enemy.  I may have said before I was only blessed a couple of Mother’s Days where I had both my mother and my daughter.  To say they were precious would be an understatement.  Now I struggle with the heartache of missing my mother while finally experiencing the joy of having my own daughter, her namesake.  HOW I wish my mother could have been with her longer on this earth.  I marvel at the similarities between them.  She is so much like my mother that it seriously freaks both my husband and me out.  Our daughter wants her Chapstick (lipstick), her purse, and wears different jewelry before she goes out.  She says the same phrases there is no way she could have ever heard from my mother.  My husband and I have remarked that going out with her is just like going out with my mother when she was alive.  My mother was a gentle but strong force in my life.  I strive to be the same for my daughter.  The sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”