Topic : Mother, Mothers

One day as I was picking
the toys up off the floor,
I noticed a small hand print
on the wall beside the door.

I knew that it was something
that I'd seen most every day,
but this time when I saw it there,
I wanted it to stay.

Then tears welled up inside my eyes,
I knew it wouldn't last,
for every mother knows
her children grow up way too fast.

Just then I put my chores aside
and held my children tight.
I sang to them sweet lullabies
and rocked into the night.

Sometimes we take for granted,
all those things that seem so small.
Like one of God's great treasures....
A small hand print on the wall.

Source unknown

We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast. When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do. She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds. Then, life was really tough! Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother, we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property, or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault. We never got drunk, took up smoking, stayed out all night, or a million other things, other kids did. Sundays were reserved for church, and we never missed once. We knew better than to ask to spend the night with a friend on Saturdays.

Now that we have left home, we are all God-fearing, educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was. I think that's what is wrong with the world today. It just doesn't have enough mean moms anymore.

Source unknown

"You don't love me!" How many times have your kids laid that one on you? Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic motivation a mother, I'll tell them:

• I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going and what time you would get home.
• I loved you enough to let you discover your friend was a creep.
• I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your bedroom, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes.
• I loved you enough to ignore what every other mother did or said.
• I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail.
• I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be.
• Most of all, I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it.

Some mothers don't know when their job is finished. They figure the longer the kids hang around, the better parents they are.

I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you're both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail. You patch and comfort, adjust and teach-and assure them that someday they will fly.

Finally they are airborne, but they need more string, and you keep letting it out. With each twist of the ball of twine, the kite becomes more distant. You know it won't be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar-free and alone. Only then do you know you did your job.

Erma Bombeck, from "Forever, Erma,? quoted in Reader's Digest, March 1997, p. 148

Many godly men of the past have been richly blessed by what they learned from their mothers. Consider the biblical characters Moses, Samuel, and Timothy. The maternal influence experienced by these spiritual leaders bore rich fruit in their lives. Think too of men like Augustine, John Newton, and the zealous Wesley brothers. Their names would probably never have lighted the pages of history if it hadn't been for the godly women who raised them in homes where the law of love and a Christian witness were their daily guide and inspiration.

Susannah Wesley, for example, spent one hour each day praying for her 17 children. In addition, she took each child aside for a full hour every week to discuss spiritual matters. No wonder two of her sons, Charles and John, were used of God to bring blessing to all of England and much of America. Here are a few rules she followed in training her children:

(1) Subdue self-will in a child and thus work together with God to save his soul.

(2) Teach him to pray as soon as he can speak.

(3) Give him nothing he cries for and only what is good for him if he asks for it politely.

(4) To prevent lying, punish no fault which is freely confessed, but never allow a rebellious, sinful act to go unnoticed

(5) Commend and reward good behavior.

(6) Strictly observe all promises you have made to your child.'

Let us honor our godly mothers today, not only with words of praise, but with lives that reflect the impact of their holy influence! - H.G.B.

Our Daily Bread, May 8

If you're a bear, you get to hibernate.
You do nothing but sleep for six months.
I could get used to that.

And another thing: before you hibernate,
You're supposed to eat yourself stupid.
That wouldn't bother me either.

If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business;
You swat anyone who bothers you or your cubs.
If your cubs get out of line, you swat them, too.

Your husband expects you to growl when you wake up.
He expects you to have hairy legs and excess body fat.
He likes it!

I wish I were a bear.

Source unknown

Ilion Jones writes that "On the great biographer Ida M. Tarbell's 80th birthday, someone asked her to name the greatest persons she had ever met. She responded, 'the greatest persons I have ever met are those nobody knows anything about.'

"Once the New York Times was asked to help a group of club women decide on the twelve greatest women in the United States. After due consideration, the editors replied, 'the twelve greatest women in the United States are women who have never been heard of outside of their own homes."'

Jones concludes, "I ask you, who was greater, Thomas A. Edison or his mother? When he was a young lad his teacher sent him home with a note which said, "Your child is dumb. We can't do anything for him.? Mrs. Edison wrote back, "You do not understand my boy. I will teach him myself?. And she did, with results that are well known.

Morning Glory, January 8, 1994

I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day;
And as my fingers pressed it still
It moved and yielded at my will.

I came again when days were past,
The form I gave it still it bore,
And as my fingers pressed it still,
I could change that form no more.

I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And molded with my power and art,
A young child's soft and yielding heart.

I came again when days were gone;
It was a man I looked upon,
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it never more.

Source unknown

Over one hundred years ago, G. K. Chesterton asked: "Can anyone tell me two things more vital to the race than these; what man shall marry what woman, and what shall be the first things taught to their first child"? Chesterton goes on to comment that:

the...natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything but everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, a woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't...Our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world....But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean....If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge (at his work)....But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless, and of small import to the soul, then I say give it up....How can it be an (important) career to tell other people's children about mathematics, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?...A woman's function is laborious...not because it is minute, but because it is gigantic. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.

Family Survival in the American Jungle, Steve Farrar, 1991, Multnomah Press, pp. 113-114

Had I been Joseph's mother
I'd have prayed protection from his brothers
"God, keep him safe.
He is so young, so different from the others.'
Mercifully,
she never knew there would be slavery and prison, too.

Had I been Moses? mother
I'd have wept to keep my little son:
praying she might forget
the babe drawn from the water of the Nile.
Had I not kept him for her nursing him the while,
was he not mine'
"and she but Pharaoh's daughter'

Had I been Daniel's mother
I should have pled "Give victory!
"this Babylonian horde godless and cruel'
Don't let him be a captive-better dead,
Almighty Lord!'

Had I been Mary,
Oh, had I been she,
I would have cried as never mother cried,
"Anything, O God, Anything...
"but crucified.'

With such prayers importunate
my finite wisdom would assail
Infinite Wisdom.
God, how fortunate
Infinite Wisdom should prevail.

Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, Ruth Bell Graham, 1991, Focus on the Family Publishing, p. 69

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan had 4 sons and they were all preachers. Someone once came into the drawing room when all the family was there. They thought they would see what Howard, one of the sons, was made of so they asked him this question: "Howard, who is the greatest preacher in your family"? Howard had a great admiration for his father and he looked straight across at him and then without a moments hesitation he answered, "Mother.'

Source unknown

The love behind a gift is more important than the gift itself. The person who has learned this will not be frustrated because his gift is small, like the husband who wrote the following lament to his wife on Mother's Day:

M is for the mink coat you want, dear,

O is for the opal ring you crave,

T is for the tiny car you'd love, sweet,

H is for the hat that makes you rave,

E is for the earrings you'd admire, love,

R is for the rug on which you'd tread;

Put them all together, they spell bankrupt,

So I'm giving you this handkerchief instead.

Our Daily Bread, May 11

Women who never have children enjoy the equivalent of an extra three months a year in leisure time, says Susan Lang, author of Women Without Children. If that figure seems high, remember that the average mother spends 3.5 more hours a week doing housework than would a woman without children, plus 11 hours a week on child-related activities. This adds up to an additional 754 hours of work every year'the equivalent of three months of 12-hour, 5-day work weeks.

Signs of the Times, May, 1992, p. 6

The love of a mother is never exhausted. It never changes-it never tires-it endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother's love still lives on.

Washington Irving

I cannot tell how much I owe to the prayers of my good mother...I remember her once praying, "Now Lord, if my children go on in sin it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold on Christ and claim Him as their personal Savior.?

Charles Spurgeon

A Mother's love is something that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it or take that love away...

It is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters even though the heart is breaking...
It believes beyond believing when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty of the rarest, brightest gems...

It is far beyond defining, it defies all explanation,
and it still remains a secret like the mysteries of creation...
A many-splendored miracle man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence of God's tender guiding hand.

Source unknown

Your love, I know-I've seen your tears;
You-ve given to me my life.
You-ve walked through hours and days and years
Of heartache, toil and strife.

To see that I could have the best
That you could give to me,
You gave up needs and often rest'
You viewed eternity.

To do His will my highest call
And by your special care
I stood and walked and did not fall,
You held me up in prayer.

Though strands of gray may brush your hair,
And miles divide our way,
I know that by your quiet prayer
You-ve helped me day by day.

You-ve shown me how to give, to share
To put my own needs last.
You-ve helped me see and be aware
That life is so soon past.

To spite your love I would not dare,
For there's not another
Who spreads her gentle love and care
Like you-My Loving Mother.

Source unknown

Grandma, on a winter's day, milked the cows and fed them hay, hitched the mule, drove kids to school...did a washing, mopped the floors, washed the windows and did some chores...Cooked a dish of home-dried fruit, pressed her husband's Sunday suit...swept the parlor, made the bed, baked a dozen loaves of bread...split some firewood and lugged it in, enough to fill the kitchen bin...Cleaned the lamps and put in oil, stewed some apples before they spoiled...churned the butter, baked a cake, then exclaimed, "For goodness sake!" when the calves ran from the pen, and chased them all back in again...Gathered eggs and locked the stable, back to the house and set the table...cooked a supper that was delicious, then washed and dried all dirty dishes...fed the cat and sprinkled clothes, mended a basketful of hose...then opened the organ and began to play: "When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day...?

Reminisce, premiere issue, 1991, pp. 46-7

A teacher gave her class of second graders a lesson on the magnet and what it does. The next day in a written test, she included this question: "My full name has six letters. The first one is M. I pick up things. What am I"? When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word Mother.

Source unknown

1) Low self-esteem,

2) Monotony and loneliness,

3) Stress from too many demands

4) Lack of time with husband,

5) Confusion about discipline,

6) Home atmosphere,

7) Need for outside role models,

8) Training of children.

From And Then I Had Children, Susan A. Yates, Wolgemuth & Hyatt

Percentage of mothers of infants (children less than 1 year old) who are employed or looking for work:

51%.

U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey, reported in American Demographics, 12/88.

The most creative job in the world involves fashion, decorating, recreation, education, transportation, psychology, romance, cuisine, literature, art, economics, government, pediatrics, geriatrics, entertainment, maintenance, purchasing, law, religion, energy and management. Anyone who can handle all those has to be somebody special. She is. She's a homemaker.

Richard Kerr quoted in Homemade, Feb. 1989

Bob Greene (in the Detroit Free Press) cited a study by attorney Michael Minton on the monetary value of a wife's services in the home. First he listed the various functions she performs: chauffeur, gardener, family counselor, maintenance worker, cleaning woman, housekeeper, cook, errand runner, bookkeeper/budget manager, interior decorator, caterer, dietitian, secretary, public relations person, hostess. Using this impressive list of household duties, Minton figured the dollar value of a housewife's work in today's (1981) labor market. He came up with the amount of $785.07 a week. That's $40,823.64 a year!

Source unknown

1. Subdue self-will in a child and thus work together with God to save his soul.

2. Teach him to pray as soon as he can speak.

3. Give him nothing he cries for and only what is good for him if he asks for it politely.

4. To prevent lying, punish no fault which is freely confessed, but never allow a rebellious, sinful act to go unnoticed.

5. Commend and reward good behavior.

6. Strictly observe all promises you have make to your child.

Source unknown

• A Spanish proverb reads "An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.? - Anon
• Our minister's wife told of filling out a form in her pediatrician's office. Beside the blank marked "occupation? were these words: "If you devote the greater part of your time to loving, caring and making a home for your family, put a big star in this space.? - Bonnie Miller
• Legally, a husband is the head of the house and a pedestrian has the right of way. Both are perfectly safe and within their rights as long as they do not try to confirm it! - George E. Bergman
• The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she'd have children if she had it to do over again. "Yes,? she replied. "But not the same ones.? - Reader's Digest, contributed by David Finkelstein
• "No man is poor who has had a godly mother.? - A. Lincoln

Sources unknown

Lorne Sanny of The Navigators once wrote of his mother: "My mother gave birth to me in a frontier house on a midwestern prairie. On the kitchen counter she placed a list of the ingredients necessary for my formula. At the top of the list was "prayer,? and that remained at the top of her list for me throughout her life...I have her to thank for firmly establishing my spiritual roots.?

Today in the Word, MBI, January, 1990, p. 23

A teacher asked a boy this question: 'suppose your mother baked a pie and there were seven of you-your parents and five children. What part of the pie would you get"? "A sixth,? replied the boy. "I'm afraid you don't know your fractions,? said the teacher. 'remember, there are seven of you.? "Yes, teacher,? said the boy, "but you don't know my mother. Mother would say she didn't want any pie. '

Bits and Pieces, June, 1990, p. 10

• Dedication (I Sam 1:11),
• Protection (Ex. 2:3),
• Training (II Tim. 1:5),
• Prayers (Genesis 21:16-8),
• Love (I Kings 3:26),
• Triumph (Matthew 15:25-8).

Source unknown

A four-year-old and a six-year-old presented their Mom with a house plant. They had used their own money and she was thrilled. The older of them said with a sad face, 'there was a bouquet that we wanted to give you at the flower shop. It was real pretty, but it was too expensive. It had a ribbon on it that said, 'rest In Peace,? and we thought it would be just perfect since you are always asking for a little peace so that you can rest.'

Source unknown

A little boy forgot his lines in a Sunday school presentation. His mother was in the front row to prompt him. She gestured and formed the words silently with her lips, but it did not help. Her son's memory was blank. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered the cue, "I am the light of the world.? The child beamed and with great feeling and a loud clear voice said, "My mother is the light of the world.?

Bits and Pieces, August, 1989

By the time the Lord made mothers, he was into the sixth day working overtime. An Angel appeared and said "why are you spending so much time on this one?" And the Lord answered and said, "have you read the spec sheet on her? She has to be completely washable, but not plastic; have 200 moveable parts, all replacable; run on black coffee and leftovers; have a lap that can hold three children at one time and that disappears when she stands up; have a kiss that can cure anything from a scraped knee to a broken heart; and have six pairs of hands."

The Angel was astounded at the requirements for this one. "Six pairs of hands! No Way!" said the Angel. The Lord replied, "Oh, it's not the hands that are the problem. It's the three pairs of eyes that mothers must have!" "And that's on the standard model?" the Angel asked. The Lord nodded in agreement, "Yep, one pair of eyes are to see through the closed door as she asks the children what they are doing even though she already knows. Another pair in the back of the head, are to see what she needs to know even though no one thinks she can. And the third pair are here in the front of her head. They are for looking at an errant child and saying that she understands and loves him or her without even saying a single word."

The Angel tried to stop the Lord. "This is too much work for one day. Wait until tomorrow to finish." "But I can't!" The Lord protested, "I am so close to finishing this creation that is so close to my own heart. She already heals herself when she is sick AND can feed a family of six on a pound of hamburger and can get a nine year old to stand in the shower."

The Angel moved closer and touched the woman, "But you have made her so soft, Lord." "She is soft," the Lord agreed,"but I have also made her tough. You have no idea what she can endure or accomplish."

"Will she be able to think?" Asked the Angel. The Lord replied, "Not only will she be able to think, she will be able to reason and negotiate."

The Angel then noticed something and reached out and touched the woman's cheek. "Oops, it looks like you have a leak with this model. I told you that you were trying to put too much into this one." "That's not a leak." the Lord objected. "That's a tear!" "What's the tear for?" asked the Angel. The Lord said, "The tear is her way of expressing her joy, her sorrow, her disappointment, her pain, her lonliness, her grief, and her pride."

The Angel was impressed. "You are a genious, Lord. You thought of everything for this one. You even created the tear!" The Lord looked at the Angel and smiled and said, "I'm afraid you are wrong again, my friend. I created the woman, but she created the tear!"

Source unknown