The Mother Of Us All Series

Mark Twain said as he read a mistaken account of his death in

the newspaper that the report was highly exaggerated. This

statement will hold true for much of what is going to be said from

pulpits across the land about motherhood. It will be highly

exaggerated because it will be unrealistic about the fact that mothers

are really not un-fallen angels, but they are sinners like the rest of

us. Fred Smith put it like this: "Many a minister on Mother's Day

allows his emotions to run away with his ethics. Glittering

generalities fall from his tongue which, weighed in the balances, are

found to be wanting in truth. It is not required of any man that he

become a liar for the sake of his mother on Mother's Day."

The facts allow us to choose either alternative of praising

mothers or persecuting them. After all, if its the hand that rocks the

cradle that rules the world, then mothers had better stop rocking the

cradles and take hands off, for their rule is shaking the very

foundations. Of course, it is unjust and highly exaggerated to

suggest that mothers are the cause of the world's mess. This is no

more valid than the reverse exaggeration that deifies motherhood.

Motherhood, like every other human subject, stands under both the

judgment and mercy of God. It is a source of both good and evil.

Mothers are the source of life, but also of death since it was Eve

who sinned and brought death into the world upon all her children.

Mothers are the source of so many of our blessings, yet mothers in

their ignorance can be a cause for their children to be perverted in

many ways. Motherhood did not escape the fall. Listen to the

account of king Ahaziah in II Chron. 22:3, "He also walked in the

ways in the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor in doing

wickedly. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

The mother of Salome compelled her to use her body in a dance

to lure Herod into promising her the head of John the Baptist. Here

are just two of the many examples of how mothers guide their sons

and daughters into the pit of damnation. This did not end with

Bible days. You can read daily of mothers neglecting their children,

or abandoning them. The world is filled with evidence to smear the

name of motherhood. Just one more example comes from Edmund

Bergler in his book Money And Emotional Conflicts. He tells about

the numerous problems in the world just because of inheritance in

relation to parents and children. He writes, "Through the course of

the years I have analyzed many neurotics with the 'inheritance

complex.' They had mothers who acted as if their sons, daughters,

sons and daughters-in-law had no life of their own but were born for

the one purpose to please them, to cater to them, and to suit them

exclusive of all others.... Said one such victims of his mother's

emotional dictatorship, "I have either to postpone my life until my

mother dies, or renounce my inheritance."

We could go on and on looking at negative realities, but we are

not interested in a down with motherhood campaign. Our aim is to

make it perfectly clear that all the bad things you can say about

mothers will never alter the fact that we love them, praise them,

honor them, and will continue to do so to the end of time. Is this

sheer, blind, unreasoning fanaticism? Not at all. It is our awareness

that is bad as they can be they are still the best there is. They have

the potential for infinite good and love, and examples are numerous

of their success. There are Hannahs who dedicate their Samuels

even before birth to God's service. There are Eunices who train up

their Timothy's in the knowledge of God's word. God could find no

better comparison than mothers when He sought to express His

tender and compassionate nature. In Isa. 66:13 He says, "As one

whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." No one calls

forth more gratitude and poetry than mothers. Edgar Ellen Poe

wrote to his mother:

In the heaven's above,

The angels, whispering to one another,

Can find, amid their burning terms of love,

None so devotional as that of mother.

No amount of negative evidence and change the positive

evidence, and so we have in mothers a great paradox. In them we

have a class of persons who are a part of this evil world, but who are

lifted up and exalted above the world because they are the objects of

great love.

There are thousands of stars that shine at night,