I unfortunately was directly at fault for her not being able to sleep in this morning, and the children appear to all have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, but I want to make it perfectly clear to anyone who is reading that I don’t know how any of the other five of us would survive without my wife Amanda. She’s remarkable in her patience, her grace, and her ability to support us day after day. There are times when I don’t know how she manages it. (Usually when I’m left alone with all four of them.)

She’s put up with a lot from us: lean years while I was in school, a rough internship (vicarage) experience, a sudden left turn after graduation and the brick walls that were soundly erected in our way after the fact, a following year of uncertainty and job searching, the discovery that Caleb has special needs, and all the milestones and difficulties between the first day we found out about Joshua to the second birthday of our youngest yesterday. She finds joy in the most unexpected places.

I admit that I’m not always the most supportive or helpful husband. She certainly manages to perform more than I can imagine within the course of a single day. She is cook, maid, negotiator, accountant, equipment manager, agent, enforcer, educator, debater, counselor, defender, and friend.

You can sum up all those into one title: mother. And she’s an amazing one at that. Our children are blessed to call her “mommy,” and I am blessed to call her “wife”.

Happy Mother’s Day, wife of mine. We love you.