Mother's Day

Mother’s Day

May 11, 2002

Once upon a memory

Someone wiped away a tear

Held me close and loved me,

Thank you, Mother dear.

M... is for the million things she gave me,

O ... means only that she’s growing old,

T ... is for the tears she shed to save me,

H ... is for her heart of purest gold;

E ... is for her eyes, with love-light shining,

R ... means right, and right she’ll always be.

Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER,"

A word that means the world to me.

--Howard Johnson (c. 1915)

Dear Lord, it’s such a hectic day

With little time to stop and pray

For life’s been anything but calm

Since You called on me to be a mom

Running errands, matching socks

Building dreams with building blocks

Cooking, cleaning, and finding shoes

And other stuff that children lose

Fitting lids on bottled bugs

Wiping tears and giving hugs

A stack of last weeks mail to read

So where’s the quiet time I need?

Yet when I steal a minute, Lord

Just at the sink or ironing board

To ask the blessings of Your grace

I see then, in my small one’s face

That you have blessed me

All the while

And I stop to kiss

That precious smile

Those are the sentiments that we so often associate with this day. But this Mothers Day I want to shake things up a little bit. I was reading in Matthew’s Gospel and I came across this incident in the life of Christ.

Matthew 12:46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.

47 Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."

48 He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?"

49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.

50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

1. Who is your Mother?

An easy answer - the woman who gave birth to me.

But is there more?

NIV 1 Timothy 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers,

2 older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.

I do not want to take away from the need to be good children and honour our biological mothers, but I also believe it is important to realize that we also have other mothers.

Some of them are not related to us. Some of them may not even have children of their own.

However, if we are part of the family of God and they are part of the family of God then they are our mothers. They ought to be treated with the same honour and respect as we treat our own physical mothers.

2. What role is there for the mothers in our family?

Titus 2:2-3

I once heard a preacher give the challenge that all of us ought to have a Barnabas and a Timothy in our lives at all times.

A Barnabas - someone to mentor us

A Timothy - someone to mentor

Mothers - Who are you mothering?

1. You don’t have to be perfect.

Oh I can’t do this.

Transparency and honesty. Struggles as well as triumphs.

Bonus - when you teach, you learn it better yourself.

2. Support: Don’t supervise.

None of us like to have someone hanging over our shoulders telling us how we are doing it wrong. However, we are all glad of an extra set of hands and a listening ear.

3. Make your self available.

Daughters - Who is mothering you?

1. Seek her out.

2. Be ready to learn

Would all of the ladies in the congregation please rise.