But I just wanted to say Happy Mother's day. I was a little busy yeaterday and did not get on all day. Hope everyone had a good day.

DH's aunt emailed this to me and I thought it was worth passing along.

This is beautiful and a wonderful
reminder for us moms!

I'm invisible..... It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or
cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner,
because no one can see me at all.

I'm invisible.

Some days I am only a pair of hands,
more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?'

I'm a car to order, 'Pick me up right
around 5:30, please.'I was certain that these were the hands that once
held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going. she's going. she's gone! One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from
England.

Janice had just gotten back from a
fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed
in.

I was sitting there, looking around
at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel
sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only
thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana
clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was
feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped
package, and said, 'I brought you t his.' It was a book on the great
cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I
read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what
you are building when no one sees.' In the days ahead I would read -
no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four
life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who
built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names. These builders
gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.


They made great sacrifices
and expected no credit. The passion of their building was fueled by their
faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a
rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw
a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and
asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a
beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see
it.'And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' I closed the
book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard
God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make
every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done,
no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to
notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see
right now what it will become.'

At times, my invisibility feels like an
affliction.

But it is not a disease that is erasing
my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the
antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see
myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they
will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be
on.

The writer of the book went so far as to
say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are
so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think
about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from
college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes
homemade pies, and then she hand- bastes a turkey for three hours and presses
all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a
monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there
is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if
we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will
marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added
to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.