Tangible Love
The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, houses a wonderful collection of ancient Bible fragments. One very small fragment is a portion of John 19. This piece of John’s gospel describes the moment, as Jesus was being crucified, when He spoke to His mother in a display of love and concern for her. The words are from verse 26, where we read, “When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ ”
The Country Of Old Age
In the book Another Country, author Mary Pipher met with people in their seventies, eighties, and nineties who were confronting many different life situations.
Magnets And Mothers
A teacher gave her class of second-graders a lesson about the magnet and what it does. The next day, in a written test, she included this question: “My 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.
Cardboard Kids
When Mike Wood began to advertise his sign company, he didn’t know how useful his work would become. Some of his signs were life-size cardboard pictures of kids, which he put close to the street.
Best Mum
On Mother’s Day, 2007, British national television ran an intriguing story. Peggy Bush’s daughter had died, so Peggy absorbed the responsibility of caring for her daughter’s three children while her son-in-law worked. Then, tragically, her son-in-law also died. With both parents gone, Peggy took her three grandchildren in and raised them as if they were her own.
Influence Of Godly Moms
Many people have been richly blessed by what they learned at their mother’s knee. Consider John and Charles Wesley. Their names would probably never have lighted the pages of history if it hadn’t been for their godly mother who taught them that the law of love and Christian witness was to be their daily guide.
A Mother’s Strength
My wife Carolyn and I were walking in a park one morning when we spotted a mother squirrel scurrying along a power line with her baby in her mouth. She delivered the little squirrel to a new nest she had built in a tree. Then she ran back across the wire to fetch another baby from the old nest and transport it to its new home. Back and forth she scampered until she had deposited all six of her babies in their new home. “Being a mother is hard work!” Carolyn mused.
The Gift Of Family
Through her books and lectures, Edith Schaeffer has become much appreciated for her insights into the value of life's ordinary days. When she and her husband Francis were first married, both sets of parents lived nearby. The newlyweds divided each Sunday afternoon and evening be-tween the Schaeffers and the Sevilles.
Indispensable
A talented stay-at-home mother wrote a delightful essay in which she vividly describes (without complaining) the frustrations, sacrifices, and loneliness that accompany her chosen lifestyle. It's not glamorous to deal with a fussy 18-month-old who is teething, to settle quarrels between an irrational 3-year-old and a pushy 5-year old, and to listen to the incessant chatter of small children. Yet she concludes that her role is indispensable for the total well-being of her children. How true!
