I get it now

Dear Mum,

Thank you.

Thank you for the hours spent washing dishes.

Thank you for cooking me so much good nutritious food, and making sure I never went to bed hungry (unless I deserved to!).

Thank you for the endless washing, and folding and ironing, because you wanted me to look my best.

Thank you for making my bed, and tidying my room, and vacuuming and mopping and dusting.

Thank you for making me learn how to do it for myself and for showing me why it was important. Thank you for showing me how to take care of others.

Thank you for driving me around to places I wanted to go, when you had plenty of other things you would rather have been doing.

Thank you for talking to me, and building a relationship with me, and for forgiving me when I said thoughtless, unkind things. Even when at times I wasn't sorry.

I'm sorry now.

Thank you for saying sorry when you were wrong, thank you for showing me how to apologise with grace.

Thank you for the nights you spent awake with me, when I was small, and thank you for the nights you spent awake praying for me when I was older, and was out with a boy. Those prayers are part of the reason why that boy is my husband.

Thank you that fear of your righteous anger, stopped me from doing many stupid things.

Thank you for making your house a home, and for making friends with that boy, and making him comfortable in your home. The time and energy you spent will be repaid with time spent with your grandchildren.

Thank you for living out your faith, and helping me to make it my own.

Thank you for being the kind of wife I want to be.

Thank you for your wisdom, your kindness, your gracefulness, your discernment, and your love.

Thank you for being my friend.

I get it now.

Her children 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.

Proverbs 31:28-30