“It’s a Miracle: Mothers”
Isaiah 66:13
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Today is Mother’s Day, a day we honor moms. If your mother is still living, be sure to call her today to say thanks.
It’s not easy to be a mother. It never has been, and it never will be.
Think, for example, of the mother of three notorious kids. Someone asked, “If you had the chance to do it all over again, would you have children?”
“Sure,” she answered, “just not the same ones.”
Or think of the mother who was putting her son to bed on the night before his fifth birthday. As she tucked him in to sleep, she tried to communicate the whole birthday idea to him.
She said, “Kevin, this is the last night of your fourth year. Do you understand that?”
Kevin was ready. For a full year, he had shown people four fingers for his four years, and now he could add a thumb.
Seeing his four fingers, his mother nodded, and said, “When you go to sleep tonight, you’ll still be four years old. But do you know how old you’ll be in the morning when you wake up?”
Nodding enthusiastically, he added his thumb to his four little fingers and said, “Tomorrow, I’ll be a handful!”
It’s not easy to be a mother. It never has been, and it never will be.
Who would you say is the most powerful person in the world?
It could be the president of the United States. After all, he’s the commander-in-chief of the greatest military force in the world, and has a nuclear arsenal at his fingertips.
Or maybe it’s a woman named Janet Yellen. She’s the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. She has the authority to raise or lower interest rates, a power that controls the price of almost everything.
Then again, how about those Arabian princes that hold the world’s oil supply in their hands? The prices they set on each barrel of oil affects economies around the world.
Now if you think any of those individuals are the most powerful people in the world, think again—for none of them are as powerful as a mother.
President Theodore Roosevelt once put it like this: “When all is said, it is the mother who does her part in rearing and training boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation…it is she who is of greater use to the community, and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable, as well as a more important, position than any man in it…She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.”
One author tells the story of when he was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. And, from time to time, there were gatherings when faculty members were encouraged to bring their spouse. And, inevitably, he said, some woman doctor or sociologist would confront his wife with the question, “And what is it that you do, my dear?”
Since she was a stay-at-home-mom raising two boys, she smiled, cleared her throat and said, “I am socializing two homo sapiens in the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the teleologically prescribed utopia inherent in the eschaton.” Then she looked at them and said, “And what is it that you do?”
As Tony Campolo once said: “Too many women are made to feel that they should apologize for being a mother.”
Just think of what some mothers will do for their children. When 38-year-old Cara Combs was 23 weeks pregnant, she was diagnosed with stage IV melanoma. Her doctors advised her to seek treatment immediately, but she chose to wait until after her baby was born.
It was a difficult decision to make. After all, she already had three children who needed her too. She wrote on her Facebook page, “There’s no good decision here. We will both be fighting for our lives and I feel incredibly guilty about that.”
So she waited five more weeks until her baby was 28 weeks along. Then she gave birth to little Shaylin, 2 pounds, 1.2 ounces, then planned to start treatment 48 hours after birth.
But it was too late. Little Shaylin lived, but her mother, Cara, didn’t. As her husband wrote, “She sacrificed everything so her legacy could live on.”
Or think of Ashley Bridges, just 24 years old. When she went in to see her doctor, complaining of excruciating pain in her knee, she discovered she had bone cancer. She couldn’t believe it. She said, “Who thinks of when their knee hurts that they have bone cancer?”
Doctors replaced her knee and most of her femur. Then she would have started chemotherapy, but she was10-weeks pregnant with a baby girl.
But she refused. She said, “My job is to protect my kids.” And she said, “I’m not going to kill a healthy baby because I’m sick.”
Then after giving birth in July, a full body scan revealed that the cancer had spread throughout her body, and even to her brain. She died the following June of 2015, at the age of 25. But her child, little Paisley, lived. When asked about what her legacy might be, she said, “I want my kids to know how much I fought for them and love them.”
As one author put it: “From the moment you hold your baby in your arms, you will never be the same. You might long for the person you were before, when you had freedom and time…and days will run into days that are exactly the same.
“But don’t forget…there is a last time for everything. There will come a time when you’ll feed your baby for the very last time. One day you’ll carry them on your hip, then set them down, and never pick them up that way again. One afternoon you’ll sing ‘the wheels on the bus,’ then never sing that song again. You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face. They will one day run to you with arms raised, for the very last time.
“So while you’re living in these times, remember there are only so many of them and, when they’re gone, you’ll yearn for just one more day of them. For one last time.”
The story is told a young mother who set her foot on the path of life. “Is the way long?” she asked. Her guide said, “Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it, but the end will be better than the beginning.”
The young mother was happy, and refused to believe that anything could be better than these years. So she played with her children, and gathered flowers for them along the way, and bathed with them in the clear streams. And the sun shone on them and life was good, as the young mother cried, “Nothing will ever be lovelier than this.”
But then, night came, and storm, and the path was dark, and the children shook with fear and cold. So the mother drew them close and covered them with her coat. And the children said, “O mother, we’re not afraid, for you are near and no harm can come.” And the mother said, “This is better than the brightness of day, for I have taught my children courage.”
Then morning came, and there was a hill ahead. The children climbed and grew weary, and the mother was weary. But at all times, she said to her children, “A little patience and we’ll be there.” When they reached the top, they said, “We could not have done it without you, mother.” And the mother, when she lay down that night and looked up at the stars, she said, “This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned strength in the face of hardness. Yesterday, I gave them courage. Today, I have given them strength.”
When the next day came, strange clouds darkened the earth—clouds of war and hate and evil. And as the children groped and stumbled, the mother said, “Look up! Lift up your eyes to the light.” And the children looked, and saw above the clouds an everlasting glory. And it guided them and brought them out of the darkness. That night, as she talked of Jesus, she said, “This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God.”
Then the days went on, and the weeks, and the months, and the years. And the mother grew old and small and bent. But the children were tall and strong, and walked with faith and courage. And when the way was rough, they lifted her, for she was as light as a feather.
Finally, they came to a hill, and beyond that hill they could see a shining road and golden gates opened wide. And the mother said, “I have reached the end of my journey, and now I know that the end is better than the beginning. For my children can walk on their own, for they walk with God.”
And the children said, “You will always walk with us, mother, even when you’ve gone through the gates to the Savior.” And as they stood and watched, she went on alone, and the gates closed behind her. And they said, “We cannot see her, but she is still with us; a mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence.”
Do mothers love? Yes, they do, far more than we could ever understand.
But their love, as great as it is, is nothing like the love of our Savior Jesus. For it was He who lived and died, then rose again to show how much He loves us. And no one can ever love us more than that.
In the words of Isaiah chapter 66: “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.”
We thank You, dear Father, for the gift of mothers and for all the joy they bring. But we thank You best of all for our Savior Jesus, for as He gave His life for us on the cross, He showed us the heart of God. This we ask in His name. Amen