Now that I've resolved some technical issues with my blogging, I blog once more. this time to think about, again, the place of women in the world.  Last week, I mentioned that March 8th is International Women's Day.  Today I add that the next day, March 9th, is my mother's birthday.  She would have been 95 years old.  When I think of women, I invariably think of, along with my wife, my mother.  A housewife her entire married life, Mom steadfastly pursued and supported, particularly in her later years, the women around the world who were advocating for increased attention to the needs of her fellow females.  Though she was a comfortable white suburbanite--a fact of which she was acutely aware--Mom devoted much time, resources, and energy to looking after her kin who had not been so fortunate.  Her daughters, my two sisters, did so--and continue to--as well.
     What, beyond lauding my mother, is my point?  All of us have mothers, all of us came from a woman, somewhere in the world.  Perhaps your mother loved you dearly, perhaps she failed to show her affection for you.  Perhaps you never knew your mother.  Whatever the case may be, we all came from a mother.  We all came from a woman who, as I shared a few days ago, had been uniquely gifted by God to gestate and give birth.  And although the sin and brokenness of this planet has often fractured the bond of mother and child, its essential truth remains:  the enduring truth of a personal God.