Today, the second Sunday of May, is Mother's Day, and that being the case, I'd like to share some thoughts with you about mothers. Now I'm not an expert on mothers, because I feel like you have to be one in order to be an expert, but I think that I'm fairly well versed on the subject in that I had one and I'm married to one.
I know two things about mothers. (One), that mothers never stop being mothers, and (two), that when the kids grow up and move away, husbands, sort of by proxy, substitute for them and the motherly instructions continue on. It's either a natural phenomenon or it's required by their union. I think that it must be "by nature" because I know women who are physically not mothers, yet still "mother" those around them.
Actually, I do know a few other things about mothers. I know that they are the world's greatest art collectors. Water-colored and finger-painted masterpieces "hung" in the Covey family gallery (the refrigerator) for many years. And I have no doubt that they're now stored somewhere in the family archives, along with the "pie tin" plaster hand prints and the ceramic animals. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish just exactly what animal was crafted, but mothers know. Or don't care, because their "little artist" created it. See, I told you I was well-versed.
And, I also know that many inspiring words have been said and written about mothers. For the rest of this editorial I'd like to share some of these words with you. I hope that you like them as much as I do.
First off, I'll talk about the one who knows mothers better than anyone, because He created them, God. A man once said, and I agree with him, that "the mother's face and voice is the first conscious objects that an infant soul is aware of, and that she stands in the place of God to the child." This thought can be born out by looking at the passage in Isa. 66:13 where it reads, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you..." Want an easily seen example of how God cares for His Children? Just remember that He takes care of them as a mother takes care of her children.
Another unknown writer once said, "If there be aught surpassing human deed or word or thought, it is a mother's love." Other than the love that God had for His creation, there exists nothing that parallels the mother's love for her child. One writer tried to describe it by saying that a mother's first ministration to her infant was, in effect, to "enter the valley of the shadow of death and win its life at the peril of her own." Maybe that comes close to helping us to understand that bond between a mother and child.
How great is a mother's influence? Probably the greatest influence on a person's life that they will ever have. That can be seen in looking at both "good mothers" and "notorious ones." Thankfully, the good ones far out number the bad ones. William Ross Wallace penned these immortal words that we're all familiar with: "The hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world." Henry Ward Beecher amplified that thought with these words: "What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way to the grave." Yes, a mother's influence is for life.
Another famous man, who was known as "Al" when he was a boy, said this about his mother after he was grown and successful. "I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of different mental caliber I should have probably turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, and her goodness were potent powers to keep me in the right path." He also said this about his mother, Nancy Elliot Edison, "My mother was the making of me....she cast over me an influence which has lasted all of my life." (Thomas Alva Edison)
Abraham Lincoln said this; "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." President Andrew Jackson once said something about his mother that I think aptly describes the nature of mothers everywhere. He said, "There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness." Doesn't that adequately show us the dual nature of mothers? I certainly think it does.
I've mentioned this writer and her thoughts before, but it's still good and appropriate for our lesson today. She wrote, "Most of all the beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world."
This makes me recall an old poem seen on a 1919 Mother's Day card. Read it with me.
Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky;
Hundreds of shells on the shore together,
Hundreds of birds that go singing by;
Hundreds of bees in the sunny weather.
Hundreds of dew-drops to greet the dawn;
Hundreds of lambs in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies out on the lawn;
But only ONE MOTHER the wide world over.
Then, another President said some most thoughtful words about mothers that fit with our subject today. Theodore Roosevelt said, "When all is said it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater use to the community and occupies, if she only would realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any successful man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of national life. She is more important by far than the successful statesman, or business man, or artist, or scientist."
In closing our thoughts today about mothers I want to go to one of the saddest pictures ever of a mother and her child. In the 25th verse of John 19 are 10 words that paint us a picture that I don't think our minds can fully grasp. Especially the minds of men, but perhaps a mother can. Notice these words there: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother." It's beyond my capability to imagine how much grief must have been in her heart nor to adequately write about it. A man far better with words than I made the attempt with these words....
"Even He that died for us upon the cross, in the last hour, in the unutterable agony of death, was mindful of his mother, as if to teach us that this holy love should be our last worldly thought - the last point of earth from which the soul should take its flight for heaven." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ron Covey
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