Mom - The Heart and Hands of God

Mother’s Day IS a Day to Celebrate

You may have missed it, but this past Tuesday was national tourism day…and national foster care day...and national packaging design day…and national barrier awareness day…and national roasted leg of lamb day (yes)…and national paste up day…and national teacher awareness day. Who knew?

I think we should clean out the national day closet a bit and start over…but Mother’s Day is a day that ought to stay on the calendar. Its history goes all the way back to right after the Civil War.

Anna Maria Reeves-Jarvis of Grafton, West Virginia, organized a club of women to nurse wounded soldiers from the North and South during the Civil War. After the war, Reeves-Jarvis started “Mothers’ Friendship Days” to reconcile families that had been divided by the conflict.

Throughout her life, Reeves-Jarvis modeled the ideals of Victorian motherhood. She gave up her dreams of college to care for an older husband and four children. She bore the loss of seven other children with grace. She taught Sunday school in the local Methodist church for twenty years and stayed active in benevolent work.

Her death in 1905 devastated her daughter Anna. She honored her mother’s memory by initiating a holiday honoring all mothers. Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 in Grafton (where Anna grew up) and Philadelphia (where she lived as an adult). Later, in a resolution passed May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress officially established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. —Elesha Coffman, “Mom, We Salute You,” Christian History Newsletter (May 10, 2002)[1]

Today we celebrate moms!

Moms Are Designed to Be Gifts from God

Moms have the wonderful opportunity to be the visible demonstration of the love and the heart of our Lord.

According to a recent Barna report, about 6 in 10 practicing Christians in the U.S. today say they came to faith because of the influence of a believer in the household where they grew up. Of those, 68 percent say a mother’s faith influenced them.

Roughly 70 percent of Christian teens told Barna they had talked with their mothers about God and faith in the past month, and more than 60 percent had prayed with their moms. In fact, teens are more likely to turn to their mothers for spiritual guidance than to other family members or friends.

About 90 percent of Christian teens say they would take questions about faith and the Bible directly to their mothers. And nearly all say their moms encourage them to attend church.

Billy Sunday once said, “There is more power in a mother’s hand than in a king’s scepter.”

Moms, you have a powerful direct influence in the lives of your children and an indirect influence on those ‘in your orbit’. This morning, I would like to point out some similarities between a mother’s love and the divine attributes of God. Both are sources of unconditional love, nurturing and provision, comfort and refuge, and sacrificial love. As we reflect on these similarities, we’ll gain a deeper appreciation God’s love for us.

Moms - The Hands and Heart of God

Unconditional Love

A Mother’s Love

Isaiah 49:15 NIV

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

A mother’s love knows no bounds. It is unconditional, regardless of her child’s flaws or mistakes.

Her love remains steadfast even when her child disappoints or hurts her.

She sacrifices her own comfort, sleep, and desires to ensure her child’s well-being.

I had a compunction to play in the woods and hedgerows as a kid. The problem with that was that I was also high allergic to poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak. One year I really got into it and I broke out everywhere to include my eyes almost closing and my lips swelling up. It was so bad that my breathing had become difficult. My mother was concerned, so, without me knowing (or remembering), she sat up all night listening to my breathing. She claims that when I woke up the next morning, I turned to her and said, “It’s alright buck-a-roo. I’m okay.” (We went to the ER that morning).

God’s Love

God’s love is equally boundless. It transcends human understanding.

Scripture tells us that God loves us unconditionally, regardless of our imperfections.

Romans 8:38–39 NIV

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

His love is unwavering, even when we stray or fall short.

Nurturing and Provision

Do you remember the picture of care and nurturing from the birth story of Moses? Moses was born into a culture of genocide but his mother wisely nurtured and provided for him.

Exodus 2:1–4 NIV

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

We don’t even know her name but he do know that she went to extraordinary actions to nurture and protect the baby that would become the savior of the Hebrew people.

A Mother’s Care

A mother nurtures her child from infancy, providing nourishment, warmth, and protection.

She teaches life skills, offers guidance, and encourages growth.

Her sacrifices often go unnoticed, but they shape her child’s character.

God’s Provision

Most of the images of God in the Bible are masculine. In fact, it never applies God to our “mother” metaphorically as it does “father”. Remember that the gods of the Canaanites and other nations were feminine, fertility gods. Jehovah/Elohim was different.

However, the Bible does use the image of the mother when it communicates the characteristics of God to nurture and provide for His people.

God provides for us abundantly. He sustains us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Just as a mother cares for her child, God ensures our needs are met.

His provision extends beyond material things to include love, grace, and purpose.

The pictures of the Bible are for our benefit. Imagine yourself as the baby in the basket floating in the Nile. Have you ever felt that way? God is watching. God is providing. You are not alone!

Comfort and Refuge

I remember that as a young father the terror of trying to comfort our children as babies. I might be successful from time to time but Cindy was the one who to whom I would hand the children.

A Mother’s Comfort

Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria, had a little boy who became very sick with black diphtheria. Doctors quarantined the boy and told the mother to stay away.

She tried, until one day she overheard him whisper to the nurse, “Why doesn’t my mother kiss me anymore?” Princess Alice ran to her son and smothered him with kisses. Within a few days, both died. —Max Lucado, “Down Deep from Heaven,” Today’s Christian(March–April 2004)[2]

When a child is hurt or afraid, a mother’s embrace brings solace.

Her presence is a safe haven—a place of refuge from life’s storms.

She wipes away tears, whispers soothing words, and offers strength.

God’s Refuge

Psalm 139:10 NIV

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

· God is our refuge and strength. In times of trouble, we find comfort in His arms.

· His promises reassure us, and His Spirit brings peace.

· Just as a mother’s love provides security, God’s love is our eternal refuge.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 NIV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

I was reminded the other day about the comfort that we receive from the Good Shepherd. We are reminded that His rod and His staff comfort us. How? The one is for inclusion and guidance. The other is for defense and discipline. The Good Shepherd is constantly on watch.

But the Greatest of All Is Sacrificial LOVE

A Mother’s Sacrifice

Very early in motherhood, moms begin to be discomforted. Morning sickness is a shameless euphemism for vomit-inducing stomach-wrenching that comes not just in the morning but at all hours of the day and night. I was in active service during Cindy’s pregnancies. I can remember my friends whose wives were also pregnant and I commiserating about the ‘pregnant attitudes’ we experienced from our wives the previous night.

A mom’s inconvenience doesn’t stop with morning sickness also are: the difficulty of birth, the demands of the newborn, (for some) the interruption of career goals or educational goals, sleepless nights, exhausting days…we could go on and on.

Years ago, a mother was walking across the hills of southern Wales carrying her baby when she was overtaken by a blizzard. When the storm subsided, her body was found beneath a mound of snow. Before she died, however, she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it around her baby.

When unwrapped, the baby boy was found alive and well. Years later, that child, David Lloyd George, became the prime minister of Great Britain and one of England’s greatest statesmen. —J. John and Mark Stibbe, A Box of Delights (Kregel, 2001)[3]

Their love compels them to give without expecting anything in return.

A mother’s sacrifice reflects the essence of love.

As powerful as that thought is about the sacrificial love of moms, consider the sacrificial love of God.

God’s Sacrifice

God’s ultimate act of love was sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins.

Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross redeemed us, offering forgiveness and eternal life.

God’s sacrificial love demonstrates His commitment to our salvation. As we honor mothers, let us also recognize the Divine Love that surrounds us. A mother’s love, though profound, is but a glimpse of God’s boundless love. May we cherish both and seek to emulate their selflessness in our own lives.

John 3:16–17 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Moms, we celebrate you today! Thank you for being an example of God’s love for us.

Maybe you’ve never understood God to be what I’ve shared this morning – loving, providing, nurturing, comforting, and sacrificial. He is all these things and more!

It may be that you are in a season when it seems difficult to see these things – they are still true!

It may be that you have never understood that having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ can provide these to you…I hope you do now!

[1]Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 290. [2]Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 291. [3]Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 291.