One of my sermon illustration books tells us about Mother’s Day. It says, “The “Mother’s Day” concept has a long history of religious connections that seem to have been predominantly Christian in modern times. In ancient Greece, the idea of paying tribute to motherhood was given expression with a regular festival tantamount to mother-worship. Formal ceremonies to Cybele, or Rhea, the “Great Mother of the Gods,” were performed on the Ides of March throughout Asia Minor. For Christianity, the concept seems to date back to the establishment of England’s “Mothering Sunday,” a custom of the people that required one to attend the mother church in which he was baptized on Mid-Lent Sunday. Gifts were to be offered at the altar to the church and to worshippers’ mothers. The concept was divorced from any “mother worship” but nevertheless perpetuated its religious association.U. S. observance of Mother’s Day, too, has been characterized by church ties from the start. The first general observance of the occasion was in the churches of Philadelphia after Miss Anne Jarvis campaigned for a holiday for mothers more than 50 years ago.”
I remember a Mother’s Day card I saw that was really cute. It was a great big card written in a little child’s printing—little first-grade printing. On the front was a little boy with untied sneakers. He had a wagon, and toys were everywhere. He had a little cut on his face, and there were smudges all over this card. It read, “Mom, I remember that little prayer you used to say for me every day.” Inside was the prayer: “God will help you if you ever do that again.”
Like all of us, I remember my mother’s favorite sayings. I’m sure all mothers used the same sayings. “There’s always something with you,” she would say to me. She wouldn’t just say it, though. She would “sigh” it. I suppose because it was true. There was always something I had done to make life a little more difficult for her. Like the time I knocked down the wasp nest and my cousin Steve was stung a dozen times. The second thing she’d say was, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” Right? Like the time I shot Dickey Jones with a pea shooter, and the pea went up his nose, and they had to take him to the hospital to get it out. Or when we were wrestling in the basement, Billy Foxhoven broke his arm. Or the time Butch and I shot holes in the front of the kitchen cabinets with a bow and arrow. Or the time I got caught stealing candy from the Cliff’s Corner store on 30th & Laurel. Or the time I got caught sneaking into the Orpheum, she had to come down and get me. Or the time… Well, I could go on! I was not an easy child, and I often think back to those things with regret that I caused my mom so much grief.
But Mom never threatened to stop loving me, or stop feeding me, or stop clothing me, or stop putting band-aids on my cuts and bruises. Somehow, I knew she’d always be there for me no matter what I did! Looking back now, I see that she was. She taught me a lot about God, who said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)