for our moms

my mom is betty. my mom is beautiful. inside and out. just as in all things, God knew perfectly well who to give me to. and He knew to make sure she was mine. i am forever grateful.

of course for my mom to be my mom, my dad needed to be my dad. and for him to be him, there had to be naomi. she has been in heaven for 14 years this year. doesn't seem possible. but as long as luke creasy lives, even though she died when he was only 5 months old, she will never really be gone. (and if my curse on luke comes to pass, he'll have one just like him.) and i'll admit she shows up more and more (and more) in my own self. and i'll just mention that i take a bit of pride in that.

mary, my mom's mom, is amazing. plain and simple. she just had her 98th birthday and is still in fine form for her years. of course she is slowing down and has her difficulties, but she is nothing short of miraculous. from time to time i've been "accused" of having some mary in me. i'm taking that as quite a compliment!

we have one more beautiful mom - greg's mom, virginia. she raised 2 pretty wonderful children (with keith's help of course!) and i'm grateful for the man she raised up in greg. she has been in heaven for 12 years this year, another fact which doesn't seem really possible. we miss her.

these precious women are nell and maxine, greg's granny and mamaw. nell knew all 3 of our boys and loved them dearly. she was so pleased that max was born in huntington - she was able to hold him hours after his birth instead of having to wait for us to travel to huntington as with blake and luke. maxine died before any of our sons were born. but she knew we had a little one on the way and she was very happy about that.

each of these women raised their children (and grandchildren) up to love Jesus. we couldn't have had any finer examples of His love.