Mother's Day

A man came home from work one afternoon and found his three small children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud. Some of their toys were scattered across the lawn and on the driveway. The door of his wife’s car was wide open, and so was the front door of their house.

Surprised at this, he rushed inside and was confronted with evidence of complete disarray. A lamp had been knocked over. The TV was loudly blaring on a cartoon channel, and the family room was littered with toys & children’s clothing.

He went into the kitchen. The sink was filled with dirty dishes, breakfast food had been spilled on the counter, the refrigerator door was open, and dog food was scattered all over the floor.

Very concerned now, and fearing the worst, he frantically began looking for his wife, heading up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes as he went. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened to her.

Rushing into their bedroom, he saw her. Still in her pajamas, she lay there curled up on their bed, reading a novel. She looked up, smiled at him, and asked him how his day had been.

Completely bewildered, he looked at her and asked, ’What happened here today?’ Again she smiled and then answered, ’You know, every day when you come home from work you ask me what in the world I do all day long?’ ’Yes,’ he said.

She answered, ’Well, today I didn’t do it.’

What would we do without mothers?

I would like to call your attention today to several passages of scripture. The first one is:

Proverbs 1:8–9 (ESV)

8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,

9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.

Proverbs 23:25 (ESV)

25 Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice.

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who is a mother and everyone who ever had a mother. There used to be a church tradition where every woman entering the church would be given a carnation, a white one if her mother was deceased and a pink one if her mother were still living.

Carnations were chosen because they were the favorite flower of Anna Maria Jarvis, the founder of Mother’s Day. In living memory there has always been a Mother’s Day but the first observance of this special day was not until 1908.

It seems like Mother’s Day should be such an easy Sunday for preachers. We could just preach a sermon filled with warm, happy illustrations and speak about mothers and how much they mean to us.

Then everyone could go home feeling good about themselves and about the celebration of Mother’s Day.

But Mother’s Day in not necessarily a happy day for everyone.

Not a Happy Day for Everyone

One woman wrote, "Mother’s Day is such a wonderful day for so many women. But it will be a sad day for some of us who have tried so very hard to become a mother, but without success. To us, having a baby is a dream just out of our reach, and Mother’s Day is a day of tears instead of joy."

And there are others for whom Mother’s Day is more a day of sadness than joy.

Maybe your Mother’s Day is tinged with sadness because you’re a long ways away from your mother, or you are a mother a long way from your children. There is sadness there because you are unable to see your special loved ones face to face.

Three mothers happened to meet as they were getting ready to board an airplane. They were each in their late sixties and were on their way to the homes of their children for Mother’s Day.

They sat together, and as they talked, they discovered they had many common experiences to share. They talked about the way things used to be when their homes were the centers of family gatherings, and how the kids always came home for Mother’s Day, and how it was such a happy time when they were all back home together.

But circumstances had changed, and now they were widows.

Now they were traveling to their children’s homes because that was just easier for everyone. There was a tinge of sadness in their voices because Mother’s Day was just not the same as it had been in the earlier years.

Family dynamics change as time goes on and sometimes the adjustments are difficult.

Maybe you’re sad today because your mother is getting old, and you are unsure what the future holds for her.

Maybe you have been surprised at how quickly she seems to be aging. You have noticed that her eyesight is not as good as it used to be, and she keeps the television turned up way too loud.

You worry that she might stumble and fall and hurt herself, or accidentally set the house on fire trying to cook a meal.

Many of you have already gone through that experience, and some have had to face the hardest decision you have ever had to make when you came to realization that you could no longer provide the required care for your mother or father and had to make other arraignments for your loved one to receive the needed care.

I found a little poem that I feel compelled to read this morning. I don’t know the author, but you will understand the sentiment contained in the poem.

What do you see, nurses, what do you see? What are you thinking when you’re looking at me? A crabby old woman, not very wise, Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes?

I’m a small child of ten with a mother and father, Brothers and sisters who love one another. I’m a bride in her twenties, my heart gives a leap, Remembering the vow that I promised to keep.

I’m a woman of 30. My young now grow fast, Bound to each other with ties that should last. Now I am 40. My children have grown and gone. And my man is beside me to see I don’t mourn.

At 50, once more babies play round my knees, Again we know children, my husband and me. I’m an old woman now, and nature is cruel. `Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body it crumbles, grace and vigor depart. I’m weak, and there is an ache in my heart. But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells. And now and again my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys, I remember the pain, And I am loving and living life over again. I think of the years, all too few, gone too fast. And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, nurses, open and see. Not a crabby old woman. Look closer, see me.

Maybe Mother’s Day is unhappy for you because of broken relationships. You have children, and you don’t know where they are or what is happening in their lives.

Sometimes I feel like if it wasn’t for Facebook, I would have little idea where my children are or what they are up to. Sometimes that alienation grows just because people have such busy lives out in the world. It is easy to lose track of those closest to us.

Maybe there is a severed relationship between you and your parents. Something event happened, something that seems small now, but feelings of hostility have replaced the loving relationship that was once there.

I know a young man who is now in his forties. Thirty some odd years ago, when he was just 12 years old his mother said something cruel to him and he never got over it. She sends him cards for Christmas and his birthday, but he never opens them. He will not take her calls when she tries to telephone him.

He has a bitterness in his heart that he just can’t seem to get past. His mother has tried for decades to make amends for the mistakes that she made but her pleas fall on deaf ears.

So maybe Mother’s Day is unhappy for you because of a similar experience that you have had. You see, families have gone through tremendous stress in the last few decades.

If you are 80 years old or more then you grew up in the 1930’s and early 1940’s.

People did not have a lot of great expectations in those days. The country was in the middle of a great depression. Unemployment was high and what people mainly wanted was just a job. Not a lot of people were trying to develop a career in which they could advance to higher and higher levels in the corporate world, they just wanted some income in order to support their families. Then war came, and now what everybody wanted was just peace and to see their loved ones once more who were fighting on foreign shores.

In those days the father was seen as the provider of the family. The father would work long hours to bring home his pay check and buy groceries and do all he could do to provide for the needs of his family.

Mother was seen as a homemaker. She kept the house, cooked the meals, and took care of the children. She devoted her life to being a faithful wife and mother. That’s what she wanted, and she was satisfied and fulfilled with her role in the family.

But then came the 50’s and 60’s. If you were raised in this era, you came along right at the beginning of the women’s liberation movement. You heard voices crying for women to demand their rights. The process began wherein society wanted to remove any distinctions between men and women.

By the 1970’s and the 1980’s some women had reached the point where they did not feel men had any useful purpose in their lives at all. We started to heard about the “Me Generation” and everybody “doing their own thing.”

Now we have arrived at the point where society has become so derailed that children are encouraged to give up the idea of there even being men and women. Now you are free to choose your own gender.

All of these factors place a great deal of stress in families today. Many homes have become battlefields where no one knows what the rules and standards really are because they have been changed so often.

As a result, some people are not even sure it is possible to find any real answers to our questions, or solutions to the problems in our families and homes today.

But we can find the answers and:

The Answers are in God’s Word

If you are a careful student of scripture, you know the solution to these problems, and answers to our doubts can be found in God’s word.

Let me give you two words to consider:

The first is Attitude,

And the second is Action.

Attitude

First of all, healing can come into our homes and families if we would take the "attitude" of "speaking the truth in love."

In Ephesians chapter four, Paul is speaking about unity of the faith. He says:

Ephesians 4:14–15 (ESV)

14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Think for a moment about this statement “Speaking the truth in love.” We are all in favor of speaking the truth when we get into a disagreement with a loved one, or a family member, but we are more likely to speak the truth as a sledgehammer, rather than speak the truth in love.

We have to come to the realization that our parents were not perfect. We need to come to the realization that our children are not perfect, although I have known parents who would never admit that. We especially need to come to the realization that we are not perfect. The only perfect person who ever lived died on a cross that we might be made perfect in our relationship to God.

The thing about imperfect people is sometimes they are going to disappoint you. Sometimes they are going to make mistakes. Sometimes they are going to hurt you when you don’t deserve to be hurt. Unfortunately, that is the way it works in an unperfect world filled with unperfect people.

Speak the truth in love. Sometimes it hurts to speak the truth. But the truth can also bring healing as we begin to be truthful and loving with each other.

The 2nd key word is "action."

Action

When we hear the word “action” it can bring to mind a lot of different things. We may thing of a movie starring one of the action hero's of the day. Some of those hero's have action figures made in their likeness.

The dictionary defines action as “the process or state of acting or of being active.” I think Paul would have made a good action hero. Paul saw a lot of action in his life. Imprisoned, beaten and left for dead, ship wrecked, snake bit, blinded, smuggled out of town under the cover of darkness. Lets see what actions Paul says should be part of the life of every Christian:

Ephesians 4:31–32 (ESV)

31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Colossians 3:12–14 (ESV)

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

What should we do?

First of all, "Be kind." Be kind to each other. The truth can hurt but when it is spoken in kindness, and you don’t do it to hurt but to help, then healing can begin.

Secondly, treat each other with "compassion." "Compassion" means that I seek to understand you, what’s going on in your life, where you are coming from. I put on your shoes, and walk in your footsteps for a while. Revolutionary things can happen in the home when parents try to understand what it is like to be a teenager what it is like to feel peer pressure to do the things you know you shouldn’t do.

If parents only knew all the stress & pressures that enter the life of a young person growing up today.

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if somehow teenagers could understand what it is like to be their parents?

To have kids that you love more than you love yourself, going through all these temptations, wanting to throw your arms around them and say, "I don’t want you to hurt. I don’t want you to feel this way. So don’t do this thing because I know it is going to hurt you."

Or if somehow we could crawl into the flesh of our aging parents and know what it is like to be trapped in a body that won’t function anymore that doesn’t see the way it used to that doesn’t hear the way it used to that can’t handle things the way it used to, and to know their frustrations because of all that.

Oh, if only we could all learn what it means to be compassionate.

Finally, Paul says, "Forgiving each other." Now you are kind and compassion-ate, so learn to forgive. Forget those things that have caused rifts in the family - that have brought division and strain. Forgive so that healing can take place and wounds disappear.

Conclusion

This morning, if you’re a mother living in a beautiful home, the spring flowers are in bloom and your children are healthy, and you have a loving husband then thank God for all your blessings. Today is a happy day for you.

Not everyone finds themselves in that situation, but it is important for you to know that God has not forgotten you. He wants to bring His healing into your life and into your home and into your family, too.

I want to close with this little story:

It’s Mother’s Day and a son phones his mother and asks, "Mom, how are you?" "Well, not too good," she replies, "I’m feeling very weak."

Suddenly concerned, her son begins asking her why. "Well,” she explains, “I haven’t eaten anything in 23 days."

"That’s terrible!" her son says. "Have you been to the doctor to see about it?" "No, I don’t need to. I know the reason why I’m not eating."

"Well, what is the reason? Why haven’t you eaten in 23 days?" he asks. She replies, "Because I didn’t want my mouth to be filled with food if my son should call."

Call your mother.