Mother’s Day 2009: A Mother’s Love
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:7; Proverbs 22:6
Introduction:
This morning after I have delivered this message, we will take time for those of you who would like, to come up and share with the congregation something you learned from your mothers. For those of you who do not know, I was a “momma’s boy” for my whole life and I learned a lot from her. I learned things like how to get your own switch – one she would approve of - so she could whip you with it; I learned while getting the whipping about all the things I did leading up to it – she would tell me with each stoke of the switch; I learned not to bring home a bad report card or if I did, don’t bother with the excuses; and I learned what it meant when she called me by my one of my other sibling’s names because she was so flustered. Most of you have similar learning from your mother, but my message today is about a mother’s love which I think is different from most other types of love.
In Second Corinthians the twelfth chapter, we find a story of Paul complaining about his thorn in the flesh. There is some disagreement about what his thorn was, but this morning I just want to use this story to paint a picture for you for Mother’s Day. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, the following is recorded: ”Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” When you consider Jesus’ response to Paul request to have the thorn removed from him, Jesus told him that His grace was sufficient and that His power was perfected in our weakness. As you think on this story, I want you to consider the thorns that a good mother must deal with in order to be a good mother.
Twenty-three years ago today, on May 10, 1986, my mother died of a heart attack at the age of 48. Her heart had been damaged when contracted rheumatic fever as a small child. It was a Saturday morning around 6:00 a.m. when my brother called me to tell me they were rushing her to the hospital. I immediately got in the car to make the six hour drive home to be with her. I made the drive in less than five hours yet I was still too late. As I entered our neighborhood and turned on our street, I saw all of the cars lined up in front of my home and I knew she was gone. You see, where I come from people would gather at your home immediately when there was a death in the family so they could help you during the most difficult time you were facing. As I told you earlier, I was (and still am) a “momma’s boy” and on that Saturday morning I lost the one person that had greatly shaped the man that I was back then and continue to grow into today.
Now I will be the first to tell you that I am a little awkward in relationships. It takes me a while to give my trust, but once you have it, you got it. If you know me, unless I am extremely comfortable with you, it takes me some time to get comfortable enough to carry on small talk as that is not something I am particularly good at. I am not the best at expressing my frustration, anger, forgiveness, happiness, etc. I tend to keep my emotions pretty much in check so the few times you may have witnessed me being emotional was probably a shock for some of you. But I was not like this with my mother and when she died I felt I had lost the one person who fully understood me. But what was it that made this relationship so special? It was not because she had given birth to me. It was not because she had spent a lot of time with me. It had to have been something more. As I was driving home on that day 23 years ago, I realize what made it special. What made my relationship with her so special in my mind was her love – her mother’s love. My message this morning is a reflection of what I discovered during the five hours that I traveled home alone praying that I would be there in time and thinking about my relationship with her.
I. The Thorns
I often buy my wife Nikki roses on Mother’s day – she loves flowers. I do that because when I think about my mother and all of the other good mothers I know, I think about a rose. I do not know why I think about the rose, but I just do and I received an email a couple of weeks ago that put it in perspective for me. If I had to name a flower for mothers I would choose the rose, but not for the reason you may think. In my hand right now, I am holding a rose. I am going to pass a rose around so that each of you can examine it closely. Look at the bloom as well as the stem and the thorns. I want you to look at the rose and see its beauty. When I think of mothers, I think about the beauty that lies within each of them. They are the givers of life. But how many times when we look at the rose we focus on the bloom only? Surely this is the prettiest part of the rose, but this morning I want you to focus on the bloom and the stem. The bloom is what a good mother becomes but the stem reflects what it took to get there. You see, the stem of a rose has thorns on it and those thorns are not something we think about when we talk of the beauty of the rose. But maybe after today, you will think differently if you choose to give your mother roses for Mother’s Day in the future. So let me begin with what I learned of a mother’s love by way of thorns.
Webster’s dictionary defines a thorn as “a very short, hard, leafless stem with a sharp point; a source of constant trouble or irritation.” It is the thorns of life that often shapes us for the better if we allow God’s grace to intervene or for the worse if we default to handling them ourselves. We easily give God the praise for the bloom, the good things of life, but we do not think to praise Him for the thorns – those bad times that He brings us through. When we take time to reflect on the thorns, we come to a better place to be able to enjoy the bloom for often times, as with the rose, below the bloom there are some thorns – some hard times. I was able to witness some thorns in my mother’s life that made her more precious to me.
The first thorn that comes to mind was her love for God. Her love for God became a thorn when she sought to be closer to Him. Remember the event surrounding the Miss American contestant and her stand on gay marriages? Remember how one of the judges and some in the media vilified her because she said she believed that a marriage was between a man and a woman only. Do you not think that she is feeling some sharp pains right now as if she is being pricked by thorns? I watched my mother go through this before she died. My mother had a love for Christ and she had a desire to learn. She was not growing spiritually in the Church she was attending. There were times when the pastor would listen to what she taught in Sunday school to obtain his message for his sermon. After years of being in this Church, my mother chose to leave so that she could go to a Church where she could grow. When she left this Church, some of her close friends turned their backs on her. Their actions hurt my mother, but she chose to stand on what she knew she needed to be able to continue her growth in Christ. Her love for God which she instilled within all of her kids enabled us to love God. She gave me the strength to do what I knew God was telling me to do, even when others were totally against me. Her love for God was present in everything she did; from her care of us kids to her welcoming in our home strangers who needed something to eat. She always gave credit to God for her being and our existence. But it was her mother’s love that she pointed all of us to Christ for she was confident that through Him we could do and accomplish more than she could ever teach us.
The second thorn that I remember my mother having to deal with was hunger. Now you may be wondering; how does a thorn being described as hunger demonstrate a mother’s love? As all of you know I grew up poor and there were times when we did not have enough food to eat. There were times when my mother would eat less and be hungry so that she could make sure we had food. I remember a story that she told me once in regret. She had a brother who served in the military. One day he came to visit her. He was hungry and began to eat some crackers that she had in the kitchen. She fussed at him for eating the crackers because she was saving them so that we – her kids – could have something to eat. From that point on he would not visit her unless he had enough money to be able to provide his own food. My mother regretted that event because it was not long after that that he was killed while still overseas. After his death, she often thought about him and that incident. My mother went hungry so that we could eat. This thorn, not having enough food in the house to feed five hungry kids, caused her to sacrifice of herself for her kids. Because of her sacrifice, we never went hungry because God honored my mother. My mother could take miscellaneous items in her kitchen and make a meal for us. I believe that was God honoring her sacrifice. Many times she told me it was by the grace of God we survived and had food to eat. The sacrifice she made for us was because of her mother’s love.
The third thorn that she had to deal with constantly was her health. As I shared with you at the beginning, she had rheumatic fever as a child and it damaged her heart. As she began having babies, she gained weight. She had a total of six children when in reality she should have stopped after two or three because of the stress it placed on her heart. Had she stopped after three, I would not be standing in this room and none of you would be here today because I would not exist. Because my mother physical body never recovered from having all of us (she carried extra weight from the childbirths), her heart was continually strained until it finally gave out. During the years before she died, she had many days of being sick. In the last year of her life, the doctor told her that she needed a heart transplant. She looked the doctor in the face and told him that one of two things would happen. Either God would heal her or God would take her home to be with Him. In this sense she understood clearly Paul’s situation. My mother believed Paul’s thorn to be something physical so she applied his situation to her own. She believed Jesus would tell her the same thing He told Paul that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” My mother did not complain about being sick, she just cried out to Jesus and placed her faith in Him. She knew that Jesus could heal her, but whether He did or not was not the issues, the real issue was that she would trust in Him. When she told me this story I understood the stand that she was taking and I told her I would stand with her. I was 24 years old and really did not fully understand how it would play out, but it was my mother’s choice. We had many long talks after she got that diagnosis and when she left here, I knew she was tired of suffering and was ready to go. I have a totally different view of death now. I look forward to seeing my family members again. I wonder what they are doing in God’s presence while I am still down here. I think about how pain free, worry free and truly happy they must be right now. As hard as it was for me, how my mother lived the last year of her life continues to give me hope. You see, I do not fear death for when I get to heaven, we will have a real family reunion. That is the expectation that my mother placed within all of us, that we will see her again.
As I was driving home to get to my mother before she died, these thoughts randomly ran through my mind. Twenty-three years later, I remember them as if it were yesterday. You see, as a child, you do not think about your parent’s death – we assume they will be around for a long time. Sometimes that is the case and sometimes it is not. I had five hours alone with God to reflect on everything my mother had placed within me and I did not get the chance to tell her that I knew of her sacrifices and I knew why she did it. The thorns that were present in her life helped shaped how she raised her kids which embedded within each of us things that we still carry with us today. She believed Proverbs 22:6 which says “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” She made sure that all of us were in Church. We may have strayed, but we found our way back.
Conclusion
I could go on for hours, but I am closing this at this point so that those of you who desire may add to this sermon with your own thoughts about what you’ve learned from your mothers. But as I close, I want to share two things. First, when you look at a rose, think about the thorns. The greatest blooms in our lives are often those that come through adversities. During our trials and tribulations, God is able to perfect us. So when you praise God for the flowers and you think about the good your mothers have done for you, reflect also on the thorns that they had to deal with to make our lives what they are.
The second thing that I want to share in closing is this and I speak directly to the mothers. As I wrote this message and thought about what my mother instilled within me; how special my relationship was with her; and how it could never be replaced, I also reflected on my own failures as a parent. It is amazing how you take time to think about what was placed inside you and how you might have failed to do the same for your own kids. So this is why I want to talk to you mothers. I speak to you not as a grown man, but as a son; as someone whose mother had a profound influence on the man I am today. I have often wondered how I would have turned out if I had more time with her but I must be content with who I am right now.
The first thing I want to share with you is this: from the hearts of all the children and myself: Thank You! You do not hear it often enough, but there are those of us who appreciate what all of you do as mothers. Please remember that the sacrifices that you are making or have made on behalf of your children are not and was never in vain. Know that the occasional failures you may have made as a mother is overshadowed by the love that you give consistently. Know that God has heard every prayer that you have prayed for your child. As a son I ask you to not give up on your kids. You are the one person that we can come to that will always have an encouraging word. Thank you for being a mother and giving us life. May God’s richest blessings be yours.
