Giving
Years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny baby in her arms, when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination and when the blizzard had subsided, her body was found by searchers beneath a mound of snow. But they discovered that before her death, she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it about her baby. When they unwrapped the child, to their great surprise and joy, they found he was alive and well. She had mounded her body over his and given her life for her child, proving the depths of her motherly love. Years later, that child, David Lloyd George, grown to manhood, became prime minister of Great Britain, and, without a doubt, one of England’s greatest statesmen.
The Self-giving Mother
About 6 am on a Wednesday morning, James Lawson of Running Springs, California left home to apply for a job. About an hour later, his thirty-six-year-old wife, Patsy, left for her fifth grade teaching job down the mountain in Riverside—accompanied by her two children, five-year-old Susan and two-year-old Gerald—to be dropped off at the baby-sitter’s. Unfortunately, they never got that far. Eight and a half hours later, the man found his wife and daughter dead in their wrecked car, upside down in a cold mountain stream. His two-year-old son was just barely alive in the forty-eight-degree water. But in that death, the character of a mother was revealed in a most dramatic and heart-rending way. For when the father scrambled down the cliff to what he was sure were the cries of his dying wife, he found her locked in death, holding her little boy’s head just above water in the submerged car. For eight and a half hours, Patsy Lawson had held her beloved toddler afloat and had finally died, her body almost frozen in death in that position of self-giving love, holding her baby up to breathe. She died that another might live. That’s the essence of a mother’s love.
The Place Is Empty
A cartoon in the Saturday Evening Post showed a young boy about five or six years old talking on the telephone, saying, “Mom is in the hospital, the twins and Roxie and Billie and Sally and the dog and me and Dad are all home alone.”
The Strategic Role of the Successful Mother
When all is said, it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater use to the community, and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any man in it. The mother is the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist. –Theodore Roosevelt
God could not be everywhere and therefore He made mothers. –Ancient Jewish proverb
Mother is the name of God in the lips and hearts of little children. –William Makepeace Thackeray
Mama’s Boy
A mother was concerned about her only son going off to college. She wrote the following letter to the college president:
“Dear Sir: My son has been accepted for admission to your college and soon he will be leaving me. I am writing to ask that you give your personal attention to the selection of his roommate. I want to be sure that his roommate is not the kind of person who uses foul language, or tells off-color jokes, smokes, drinks, or chases after girls. I hope you will understand why I am appealing to you directly. You see, this is the first time my son will be away from home, except for his three years in the Marine Corps.”
Tell Me about Your Mother
A small boy went to the lingerie department of a store to purchase a gift for his mother. He bashfully told the clerk that he wanted to buy a slip for his mother, but he didn’t know her size. The lady explained that it would be helpful if he could describe her—was she fat, thin, short, tall? The youngster replied, “Well, she’s just about perfect.” So the clerk sent him home with a size 34. A few days later, the mother came to exchange the gift, as it was too small. She needed a size 52! Just about perfect!
A Mother Is Waiting
John Todd was born in Rutledge, Vermont, into a family of several children. They later moved to the village of Killingsworth back in the early 1800s. And there, at a very young age, both John’s parents died. The relatives wondered what they would do with so many children, how they could parcel them out to other friends and relatives. One dear and loving aunt said she would take little John. The aunt sent a horse and a slave to get John, who was only six at the time. The slave, Caesar, came and put the little boy on the back of the horse. On the way back, an endearing conversation took place:
John: Will she be there?
Caesar: Oh, yes, she’ll be there waiting up for you.
John: Will I like living with her?
Caesar: My son, you fall into good hands.
John: Will she love me?
Caesar: Ah, she has a big heart.
John: Will I have my own room? Will she let me have a puppy?
Caesar: She’s got everything all set, son. I think she has some surprises, too.
John: Do you think she’ll go to bed before we get there?
Caesar: Oh, no! She’ll be sure to wait up for you. You’ll see when we get out of these woods. You’ll see her candle shining in the window.
When they got to the clearing, sure enough, there was a candle in the window and she was standing in the doorway. She reached down, kissed him, and said, “Welcome home!” She fed him supper, took him to his room, and waited until he fell asleep. John Todd grew up to be a great minister of the gospel. But it was there at his aunt’s, his new mother, that he grew up. It was always a place of enchantment because of his aunt. It awed him that she had given him a second home. She had become a second mother to him. Years later, long after he had moved away, his aunt wrote to tell him of her impending death. Her health was failing and she wondered what was to become of her. This is what John Todd wrote her:
“My Dear Aunt,
Years’ ago, I left a house of death not knowing where I was to go, whether anyone cared, whether it was the end of me. The ride was long, but the slave encouraged me. Finally, he pointed out your candle to me, and there we were in the yard and you embraced me and took me by the hand into my own room that you had made up. After all these years, I still can’t believe it—how you did all that for me! I was expected; I felt safe in that room—so welcomed. It was my room.
Now it’s your turn to go, and as one who has tried it out, I’m writing to let you know that Someone is waiting up. Your room is all ready, the light is on, the door is open, and as you ride into the yard—don’t worry, Auntie. You’re expected! I know. I once saw God standing in your doorway—long ago!”
Luther on Mother
In commenting on the nature of women, Martin Luther is reported to have said: “When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. He called her Eve, that is to say, the Mother of All. He did not style her wife, but simply mother, mother of all living creatures. In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman.”
Is This Compassion?
A fifteen-year-old boy came bounding into the house and found his mom in bed. He asked if she were sick or something. He was truly concerned. Mom replied that, as a matter of fact, she didn’t feel too well. The son replied, “Well, don’t worry a bit about dinner. I’ll be happy to carry you down to the stove.”
Type Casting
After years of hauling children, pets, groceries, and camping gear, the family station wagon sputtered to a stop. My wife told me she was ready for a change, but I didn’t realize how big a change until we got to the car dealer and she fell in love with a foreign sports car. I pointed out, “But, honey, this eight-passenger wagon over here has power steering, luggage rack, and fold-down seats, all for the same price as the sports car.” She glared resentfully at the big car. She snapped, “I don’t like it.” “But why not?” “It has Mother written all over it!”
The Mothering Experience
My thirteen-year-old daughter is perhaps having more trouble than some teens “discovering who she is” because she is adopted from South Korea and we have no idea who her birth mother might be.
Recently Amy received braces on her teeth and she was more and more uncomfortable as they the day wore on. By bedtime, she was miserable. I gave her some medication and invited her to snuggle up with me for awhile. Soon she became more comfortable and drowsy. In a small voice that gradually tapered off to sleep, she said, “Mom, I know who my real mom is, it is the one who takes away the hurting.” –Margaret H. Cobb
Famous Mothers, Caught Unawares
Alexander the Great’s mother: “How many times do I have to tell you—you can’t have everything you want in this world.”
Franz Schubert’s mother: “Take my advice, son, Never start anything you can’t finish.”
Achilles’s mother: “Stop imagining things. There’s nothing wrong with your heel.”
Sigmund Freud’s mother: “Stop pestering me! I’ve told you a hundred times the stork brought you!”
Maternal Conversions
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. –Spanish proverb
Beauty of Mother
It was mid-October, and the trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway were ablaze with color. At an overlook, we stood next to a woman who was showing the view to her elderly mother. “Isn’t it wonderful of God to take something just before it dies and make it so beautiful?” the daughter commented as she gazed at some falling leaves. “Wouldn’t it be nice if He did that with people?” the mother mused. The younger woman looked at the stooped, white-haired figure beside her. “Sometime He does,” she answered so softly that she thought no one heard. –B.G. White
Mother’s Hard Task to Love
Khalil Gibran, in The Prophet, expresses well the hard task of a mother to love completely and deeply and yet always with the task of letting go. “You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the books from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
Favorite Child
Every mother has a favorite child. She cannot help it. She is only human. I have mine—the child for whom I feel a special closeness, with whom I share a love that no one else could possibly understand. My favorite child is the one who was too sick to eat ice cream at his birthday party, who had measles at Christmas, who wore leg braces to bed because he toed in, who had a fever in the middle of the night, the asthma attack, the child in my arms at the emergency room
My favorite child spent Christmas alone away from the family, was stranded after the game with a gas tank on E, lost the money for his class ring.
My favorite child is the one who messed up the piano recital, misspelled committee in a spelling bee, ran the wrong way with the football, and had his bike stolen because he was careless.
My favorite child is the one I punished for lying, grounded for insensitivity to other people’s feelings, and informed me he was a royal pain to the entire family.
My favorite child slammed the doors in frustration, cried when she didn’t think I saw her, withdrew and said she could not talk to me.
My favorite child always needed a haircut, had hair that wouldn’t curl, had no date for Saturday night, and a car that cost $600 to fix. My favorite child was selfish, immature, bad-tempered and self-centered. He was vulnerable, lonely, unsure of what he was doing in this world—and quite wonderful.
All mothers have their favorite child. It is always the same one: the one who needs you at the moment. Who needs you for whatever reason—to cling to, to shout at, to hurt, to hug, to flatter, to reverse charges to, to unload on—but mostly just to be there. –Erma Bombeck
Only a Housewife?
Too many times women are made to feel that they should apologize for being mothers and housewives. In reality, such roles can be noble callings. When I was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, there were gatherings from time to time to which faculty members brought their spouses. Inevitably, some woman lawyer or sociologist would confront my wife with the question, “And what is it that you do, my dear?” My wife, who is one of the most brilliantly articulate individuals I know, had a great response: “I am socializing two homo sapiens in the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the teleologically prescribed utopia inherent in the eschaton.” When she followed that with, “And what is it that you do?” the other person’s “A lawyer” just wasn’t that overpowering. –Anthony Campolo
Not Too Far From Wrong
It was a Rally Day program at the church and a little girl was to recite the Scripture she had memorized for the occasion. When she got in front of the crowd, the sight of hundreds of eyes peering at her caused her to forget her memory work.
Every line that she had so carefully rehearsed faded from her mind and she stood there unable to utter a single word. In the front row, her mother was almost as frantic as the little girl. The mother gestured, moved her lips, trying to form the words for the girl, but it did no good.
Finally, the mother, in desperation, whispered the opening phrase of the memorized Scripture: “I am the light of the world.”
Immediately the child’s face lit up and a smile appeared on it as she said with supreme confidence: “My mother is the light of the world!”
Of course, everybody smiled and some laughed out loud. Then they soberly reflected that the girl, in some ways, was not far from wrong. For the mother is the light of the child’s world.
Powerful Evidence Unrefuted
When Robert Ingersoll, the notorious skeptic, was in his heyday, two college students went to hear him lecture. As they walked down the street after the lecture, one said to the other, “Well, I guess he knocked the props out from under Christianity, didn’t he?” The other said, “No, I don’t think he did. Ingersoll did not explain my mother’s life, and until he can explain my mother’s life, I will stand by my mother’s God.”
Maternal Legacy
When the will of Henry J. Heinz, wealthy distributor of the famous ’57 Varieties line, was read, it was found to contain the following confession:
“Looking forward to the time when my earthly career will end, I desire to set forth at the very beginning of this will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I also desire to bear witness to the fact that throughout my life, in which there were unusual joys and sorrows, I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left my by my consecrated mother, a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I have attained.”
Summing It Up
On Mother’s Day a minister gave this perfect tribute: “My mother practices what I preach.”
All Grown Up
I finally found a Mother’s Day card that expressed my feelings for my mother in real terms. It said, “Now that we have a mature, adult relationship, there’s something I’d like to tell you. You’re still the first person I think of when I fall down and go boom!”
A Child’s Perspective
A little boy was talking to the girl next door. “I wonder what my mother would like for Mother’s Day.” The girl answered, “Well, you could promise to keep your room clean and orderly. You could go to bed as soon as she calls you. You could brush your teeth after eating. You could quit fighting with your brothers and sisters, especially at the dinner table.” The boy looked at her and said, “No, I mean something practical.”
Appreciating Mother
Not until I became a mother did I understand how much my mother had sacrificed for me. Not until I became a mother did I feel how hurt my mother was when I disobeyed. Not until I became a mother did I know how proud my mother was when I achieved. Not until I became a mother did I realize how much my mother loves me. –Victoria Farnsworth
The Best Preacher
The preacher G. Campbell Morgan had four sons, all of whom were preachers. The youngest son, Howard, considered a fine preacher, once took his father’s place on this side of the Atlantic while Dr. Morgan preached in London. Someone came into the drawing room when the family was there and, thinking to find out that Howard was made of, asked this question: “Howard, who is the greatest preacher in your family?” Without a moment’s hesitation, he answered, “My mother.” Sometimes men and women who never stand at a pulpit preach the greatest sermons through living out the Word in their daily lives.
My Name Is
A teacher had just given her second-grade class a lesson on magnets. Now came the question session, and she asked a little boy, “My name starts with an M and I pick up things. What am I?” The boy replied instantly, “A mother.”
Not on Mother’s Day
After dinner on Mother’s Day, a mother was washing the dishes when her teenage daughter wandered into the kitchen. Horrified to see her mother at the sink, she exclaimed, “Oh, Mama, you shouldn’t have to do dishes on Mother’s Day.” The mother was touched by this seeming thoughtfulness and was about to take off her apron and give it to her daughter when the daughter added, “They’ll keep till tomorrow.”
Edison’s Tribute
I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me an influence which has lasted all my life. The good effects of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been for her appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I should never likely have become an inventor. I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of different mental caliber, I should have turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness were potent powers to keep me in the right path. My mother was the making of me.
Family Hardware
A child without a mother is like a door without a knob. –Jewish proverb
Family Math
A teacher was giving a lesson in fractions. “Johnny, suppose there were seven in your family—five children and mother and father—a total of seven. Suppose there was a pie for dessert. What fraction of the pie would you get?” Johnny answered, “One-sixth.” “What do you mean?” asked the teacher. “Don’t you know about fractions?” Johnny replied, “I know about fractions and I know about my mother, too. Mother would say she didn’t want any.”
Retrospective
A little girl was shown pictures of her mom and dad on their wedding day. She asked her father, “Daddy, is that the day you got Mom to come and work for us?”
Looking Out for Mom
A penny-pinching miser defended himself against criticism aimed at his parsimonious ways. He said, in his own defense, “Why, I couldn’t stand for my mother to go on year after year working every night scrubbing and cleaning office floors, so I just bought the office building.” The listener asked, “Well, what did you do for your dear mother then?” The miser smiled proudly and said, “Well, she was immediately moved to the day shift.”