"Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man
who can find?" Proverbs 20:6
During my bible reading the other day, I
came upon this verse and it really hasn't left my mind. I keep thinking
about this unfailing love. I try to imagine what it really, really means to
possess unfailing love. For someone to never stop loving you no matter what
decision, action, or situation you could be in. I don't know how God does it.
Like no matter how badly I screw up, He still loves me unconditionally. I think
about how right this verse is. It is extremely difficult to find someone that
stays faithful to unfailing love. I myself can't say that I have demonstrated
unfailing love through everything. I racked my brain for days trying to find
someone that proved this. I continued to come back to the only logical answer
that I could find. The only person in my life who has stayed completely true to
having unfailing love for me. And that's my rock, my comforter, my number one
confidant, my Snokums, my Rabbit, my mommacita, my beautiful mom, Jessica Jean
Galloway.
It's been a really crazy twenty years being
my mom's daughter. If you know her, you know she's pretty hardheaded and
incredibly fearless. And more often than not it is extremely difficult to keep
up with her. She excels in everything that she puts her mind to. (Except golf,
just kidding Momma, you're ten times better than me and have progressed
tremendously.) I think back to the first time I went hunting with my tomboy of
a mother. I was four or five. Laying a warm blanket on the ground, she told me to sit quietly and
read while she looked over the Bulverde landscape. Softly she told me to cover
my ears as I watched the spike walk into the open pasture, and then mom took
the shot. Sure enough, the deer disappeared into the tall grass, and I
impatiently waited for mom to calm down from her buck fever so we could go see
it. Tromping through grass that was about as tall as I was, I joyfully
yelled that I had found a rabbit. Mom kept telling me that those were the
deer's ears above the grass, and I insisted she was wrong and that I would
catch that rabbit. Without surprise, I was incorrect. And so begins all the
times my mother was right, and I was wrong. Which by now, is too many to
count.
Her love for me has made her someone that
supports me like no one else. She has come to all my major events through my
life. And she has come with her screaming voice ready to go. I remember how she
coached my eighth grade softball team with my dad. At times, I hated being the
coaches daughter, but other times it was the coolest thing ever. Seeing my mom
in action has to be the best motivator ever. I don't know how she does what she
does, but she handles a position of leadership excellently.
She's been my go-to since I was young.
Through every best friend breakup, every boyfriend issue, and every major
setback I have ever faced, she has heard about it first. My mom is the greatest
problem-solver I know. She handles crazy situations with ease and confidence.
It is so admirable. I knew that if I told her I needed help with something, she
would fix it. She always did, and if she couldn't fix it right then, by
goodness she was wiping my tears and telling me she was going to. That was
something I could depend on. That was my rock through every wrong decision or
action that I made. And believe me, there's been some two a.m. phone calls that
only my mom could have gotten me through.
She's also been my strength. Losing my dad
is incredibly difficult, but I know that I would not be the person I am after
all of this if it was not for my mom and her strength. She was the first person
I could see, although incredibly blurred, when I was pulled out of the
ambulance the day of the accident. She crawled in my hospital bed with me, and
sang to me until I could drift off to some sort of sleep. She was the first
person I saw when I woke up the next morning, and she was the only person who
could reassure me that even if daddy didn't make it, everything was still going
to be okay. She has calmed me down from nightmares and anxiety attacks
like no one else can. She tells me that I am her strength and her pillar
through the craziness that we call life in the past eight months and nine days,
but that is wrong. She makes me strong.
It amazes me that even after the terrible
wrongs that I have done, my mom still loves me. It has never been a different
kind of love either. If anything I feel like her love for me is stronger and
more connected than ever after I mess up. I don't know how she can do it. It is
so difficult to possess unfailing love, but I am so grateful that she does. No
matter how hard I fall, how badly I mess up, how mean or hurtful I am to my
mom, her love never fails. If my mom can love me like this, I can't imagine how
much it is that God loves me. I don't understand how he can love us
unconditionally and unfailingly, but I am grateful.
Thank you for showing me how to be a great
mother. Thank you for teaching me to be strong, determined, and confidant.
Thank you for wiping my tears, singing me to sleep, and playing with my hair.
Thank you for teaching me to do my makeup, walk in heels, and whip up a meal
out of the oddest ingredients. Thank you for showing me how a wife should
handle unexpected situations, how to love her husband, and how to follow her
faith. Thank you, Momma, for unfailingly loving me.
