The Love of a Mother

Today is Mother's Day, and throughout the world, sons, daughters and husbands will do what they should be doing already - honoring their mothers and the mother of their children. It is estimated that Americans alone will spend nearly $5 billion dollars on flowers, jewelry, gifts, dinners and cards to say "I love you" to our moms.

Did you know that this year Mother's Day in the United States is exactly 100 years old? Julia Ward Howe (who also wrote the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" wrote the first Mother's Day proclamation in 1870, but she was not successful in her effort to get official recognition for the holiday. The first Mother's Day in the U.S. was on May 10, 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia.

Seems like everything and everybody now has their own day. We set aside days to honor our parents, our grandparents, our bosses, our secretaries, our public servants... the list seems to go on and on. It would be easy to be cynical and dismiss all of these days as a conspiracy by Florists, greeting card companies and restaurants to make more money.

But we would be missing out on a great opportunity to not only bring happiness to our moms, but to be obedient to God's word.

There is a Bible stud principle known as the law of multiple mentions. In essence this says that if God says something over and over again, it must be pretty important! Such is the case with the principle of honoring our parents. It is the fifth of the Ten Commandments and is the only one with a promise attached to it: "Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you." (Exodus 20:12, NKJV) We are then reminded of that principle repeatedly throughout the Bible. In Ephesians 6, Paul says, "Children, honor your father and mother for this is right" and then he repeats the fifth commandment and reminds them of the promise - "that you may enjoy long life upon the earth."

Mothers are a wonderful, precious gift from God. It was in our mother's arms that we first learned about safety, security, and above all, love. We can easily begin to understand God's unconditional love for us, because we saw that love modeled for us by our mothers, who loved us no matter how badly we messed up.

When we think of our mothers, somehow, "thank you" seems so shallow... so trite compared to what they have done for us. Some of our best and brightest wordsmiths have attempted to find the words to express what is in our hearts. Like Abraham Lincoln who said, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother." Or Edgar Allen Poe, known for writing many dark and frightening tales wrote, "The angels, whispering to one another can find, among their burning terms of love, none so devotional as that of 'Mother.'"

Or how about the old Jewish proverb that simply says, "God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers." Or the Irish proverb, "A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest."

Perhaps the best and most eloquent was that great philosopher Calvin... not the theologian, the one from the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" who said: "Nobody knows how to pamper like a mom."

Let me add my feeble, inadequate words to theirs by simply saying, Happy Mother's Day, Mom... I love you more than words could ever express.