I will go.

As a young man, I always thought of her life as a sacrifice.

I thought she gave up what she wanted to do something noble and good.

It was only a few years before her death that I understood.

“There’s a great broad road to nowhere and so many travel there,
but I have a gentle shepherd I would follow anywhere.
Though the journey take me far away from the place I call my home,
to be ever in His presence, where He leads me I will go.
Where He leads me I will go.”

She left her home. She left her family, everyone she knew and loved, to move over 9,500 miles away to a place she had never seen, never even heard of a few months before, with no way to return for at least 4 years, no matter what happened while she was there.

But she wasn’t sacrificing her life, she was enriching it.

She was drenching it with love and purpose.

She was so courageous. She was so faithful.

She was my mom and today is her birthday.

She would be 97 years old and I miss her every day.