President Wilson Mother’s Day

Today is the 2nd Sunday of May and we all know the significance of this date, don’t we?  Since 1914, when President Wilson signed the resolution, we’ve celebrated Mother’s Day on this particular Sunday each year.  In a sense though, we shouldn’t have to be reminded by the government to do this.  The honoring of our mothers should be a continual thing in our lives rather than just doing so on one day out of 365.

I’ll speak briefly about the history of this memorial and tell you that it was brought about by the efforts of Anna May Jarvis after the death of her mother.  The 2nd Sunday of May was chosen because that’s the day Anna’s mother passed away.  An interesting twist of fate regarding Anna May is that she was never honored by this occasion because she never married thus never had any children.

One of the things that Anna was adamantly opposed to was the commercialism of Mother’s Day.  She actively fought against this until she became too old and feeble to do so.  She died in a sanitarium, blind, deaf and penniless, in 1948.

Having said all of that, let’s take a few moments and talk about this wonderful institution known as “Mothers.”  An institution I might add, that was ordained and created by God and did not come into being by the happenstance of two cells bumping into each other in some primordial slime. 

A famous preacher by the name of Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”  And when we think about that, we should also think about what Solomon wrote in Prov. 1:8 “...Forsake not the law of thy mother.”  Which writing also fits very well with something else he wrote in Prov. 22:6 where he tells us that a child properly trained (raised) will “not depart from it.”

Unfortunately this can be a two-way street, can’t it?  The key word is “properly” which is the word I used.  The KJV account reads “in the way he should go.” And the reason I said “unfortunately” is because we all know that many children are raised up in ways that they shouldn’t go. 

But you know, when you think about it, maybe those kinds of “mothers” aren’t truly “mothers.”  A man (name unknown to me) once said that “Simply having children doesn’t make them mothers.” When I consider all the examples we see on TV news about some of these “child-bearers” I have to say AMEN to that man.  Another writer once said, “Children are what their mothers are.”  Doesn’t this apply to our “two-way street” scenario too?

Speaking of mother’s on TV, I had to applaud that mother in Baltimore last week who saw her teenage son participating with the rioters and went out there and physically removed him from the crowd, sending him home with some strong words of admonition accompanied by a few well-directed slaps for added emphasis.  What a lesson that child learned right in front of the whole world.

We are so blessed in our lives by God and probably one of the greatest of those blessings is to have a good, God-fearing mother.  One who loved God enough to “train” her children up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4)   I can see this played out in the life of Jesus by reading what’s said in Luke 2:40 regarding how Mary performed as a mother.  “And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.”

While on the subject of Jesus’ mother, I think that one of the saddest pictures imaginable is the ten little words we read in John 19:25.  “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother.” Try to put yourself in her place and imagine what she must have been going through.  Watching her first-born child being horribly executed for absolutely no earthly offense.  Words can’t properly address that, can they?

In light of the picture presented by the foregoing paragraph, I think it entirely appropriate that Jesus’s last thought regarding another human being was of his mother standing there at the foot of the cross.  His dying request to His beloved disciple, John, was to take care of my mother.  The passage tells us that from that day on she lived with John in his home.

We see mothers of our fallen military heroes from time to time being interviewed  on TV and every time I see one of them I can’t help but think about a short poem penned by a man named Joacquin Miller.  It simply reads:

       “The bravest battle that was ever fought;

         shall I tell you where and when?

        On the maps of the world you will find it not;

         it was fought by the mothers of men.”

Thinking back to what I earlier wrote regarding the words of Solomon, I once read something I see as being very profound.  I don’t know who wrote it but I do know what was said speaking of mothers.  That “she stands in the place of God to the child.”  Until the age of accountability, I believe that to be a true statement.  Could that be a reason why we’re commanded to “honor your father and mother” and the child that doesn’t will surely suffer from not doing so.  Again, I think so.

Now, my last couple of thoughts.  It seems like we’re battered and bruised by the world at times, doesn’t it?  Times when things just don’t seem to go right for us.  When it seems like everything is happening and no one cares.  Well, at those times, remember what Isaiah told us about how God cares: “As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

That passage for Isaiah (66:13) reminds us that we are “children of God.”  We’re part of His family, having been made so by the sacrifice of our Brother, Jesus Christ.  This thought reminds me of a little saying that I once read and made a note of.  It simply said: “Take the word ‘family.’  Strike out the M for MOTHER and the Y for YOUTH and all you have left is FAIL.”

--Ron Covey