HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY !

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. A few years ago I was asked to give a witness of faith from the perspective of a mother during our Mother's Day church service.

I had a mother, two grandmothers, and a great-grandmother. I am a mother of three sons, a grandmother of four granddaughters, and a great-grandmother to a four year old boy whose first name is my last name.

Thoughts of motherhood lead me to thoughts of thanksgiving and joy. So this is what I said:

I am thankful for the world which God created.
I stand in awe of the God who created the universe. He hung the sun, moon, and stars, put in motion the seasons, the tides, the air and all the things we need to survive; but he also made beautiful things - cool things - things to make us smile - clouds, rainbows, flowers, kangaroos with a pocket to carry their babies, red birds, lightning bugs, shaggy puppies, and zebras with black and white stripes.

I thank Him for all of his creation and for the opportunities I have had over the years to see oceans, mountains, waterfalls, and all manner of beauty & majesty of his creation. Nothing beats seeing it through the eyes of your child - whether it's a snowfall, waves in the ocean, the creek that runs behind the house, or a hiccuping frog.

I'm thankful that God created us in such a marvelous way.
One of my favorite passages of scripture is Psalms 139:13-14: "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Other translations call it marvelous, remarkable, complex.

A human being is indeed a complex thing, delicate and fearfully and wonderfully made.

Consider the five senses :

The sense of sight - of a sunrise or a sunset, a field of wildflowers, fall colors on a mountain side. Nothing beats the first sight of your baby's ten toes. During visitation at the funeral home when our youngest son died, I kept remembering the day I had first unwrapped his blanket to see his little feet.

The sense of sound - I loved the powerful sound of Niagara Falls, and I love the sound of birds singing in the back yard. For a mother the sound of her teenager's car turning into the driveway at night can be the sweetest sound on earth as is a voice on the phone 'Hey Manmaw, we got here ok'. I think there is absolutely nothing more exhilarating than the uncontrollable laughter of a toddler. (I remember the toddler in our house who got tickled and couldn't stop laughing at the sight of the platter of little tree shaped molds of lime jello that I was bringing to the table.)

The sense of touch - a kitten's fur, a handshake, a hug, warm sand on your toes at the beach and a baby's slobbery kiss.

The sense of smell - of roses, or cookies baking in the oven, or rain, or freshly cut grass. Or baby powder or a teenage daughter's first corsage.

Consider emotions - joy, fear, anger, sorrow. Consider the means of expressing emotions - tears, smiles, frowns, laughter. A child has been the source of my moments of greatest joys and also of my greatest sorrows in life.

Another remarkable thing is our Memory. I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning but I can remember exactly how my mother's fried okra and corn tasted. I have all these crazy, wonderful memories of my own childhood and memories that we made with our children and they grow more and more precious as time passes. I encourage all young families to build beautiful memories!

I'm thankful for salvation.
We all know the story of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden - how they disobeyed God and were sent away from God and the Garden - to till the ground which would have thorns and thistles and to suffer pain in childbirth.

I'm thankful that God had a plan all the time for a way that we could be reconciled to him - that when the time was right he wrapped himself up in a little bundle of humanity, left the glories of heaven and came as a little bitsy baby to earth and lived as a man - was tempted in every way that we are - and felt all the earthly pains that we feel - so that we could show us how to live and how to love - and loved us enough to die on the cross for our sins and overcame death so that we can have eternal life with God.

I'm thankful for my faith:
I'm thankful for the measure of faith which God has given me - I'm thankful that he answered my prayer when I asked him to give me the courage to accept His son and be baptized for the remission of my sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I'm thankful for his mercy and his grace. I'm thankful for all the people he has put in my path to help me in my walk of faith.

I'm thankful for my husband:
I am thankful that after God made man, he decided that man needed a mate. And I am thankful to have been Thomas Hogan's mate for over 50 years. I met him at a sock hop when I was 14. He asked me to dance and asked for my phone number. At the end of the evening, he said "I'll call you." I said "No, you won't. You don't remember my phone number." So I wrote it down for him. And I am thankful that he didn't loose it. Somebody famous said "The best gift a father can give his children is to love their mother." I am glad my children got that gift from their dad.

I'm thankful for love:
And I'm glad that love is stretchy! Some mothers who only have one child say they are afraid to have a second child because they're afraid they won't love the second one as much as they do the first one. Some young mothers are afraid that their child will love a caregiver more than they love the parent. But LOVE is stretchy - it doesn't run out!

My grandmother would go out and kill a chicken and fry chicken for Sunday dinner. She always ate the feet. I got the pulley bone because that was my favorite piece - she said the foot was her favorite piece - right!. I believed that as a child.

I'm sure that there are times when all parents , regardless of how many children they have, feel they don't have enough time - or enough money - or enough energy - or enough chicken - but there's always enough love. Different children have different needs at different times - but love stretches. And I'm thankful for that.

I am thankful that God created the family.
My mother worked very hard at socializing me. But she had to have a lot of help from my dad, her six sisters, my grandmothers and probably called in some neighbors at times and the jury is still out on whether I was ever properly socialized. But my mother gave it her best - and she left me with a remarkable example of love, unselfish giving, hard work and appreciation for the beauties of God's creation.

Sometimes in today's world, the family gets messed up by one of the 3 D's - Death, Divorce,and Drugs. I'm thankful that human nature is such that there are aunts and uncles and grandparents and stepparents and in-laws and friends and sometimes strangers who step up to the plate to fill the role of parents so many times for children, babies, teenagers, and even young adults.

And I'm thankful for mothers:
Yes, I'm a mother! I will always be a mother. Other labels or titles come and go. I was a student for am unbelievably long time but I finally graduated. I was an Accounting Manager but the plant closed. Once I was 'the patient in 302' but I got well. Being a mother is never over.

A mother's role changes over time. Remember the change when your baby started sleeping all night? When they were tall enough to reach the cereal box and you could sleep late on Saturday? Was their a time in your child's development when your role changed to invisible? I knew a child once who liked having her mother meet her school bus so she didn't have to walk down a long driveway by herself but she wanted her mother to hide behind a tree so people on the bus wouldn't see her.

The empty nest is a big change for parents. I jokingly tell people who are facing an empty nest that it takes about 15 minutes to adjust but the truth is that I recall in excruciating detail the day each of my children left home. I recall that it was a big transition for me when all of a sudden my boys got married and I was no longer the family's social director or fashion police. As you get older the role continues to change. A couple of years ago we put our boys on the signature card at the bank for our safe deposit box and now we have put them on that list at the doctor's office that says he can tell them medical stuff about us. During my mother's later years I often spent the night at her house. I would fall asleep on the sofa and she would always cover me with a blanket.

The role changes but it's never over.

I am thankful for my children and grandchildren.
We learned so much from our three boys. These days our grandchildren teach us about cell phones, MP3 players, computers, and cameras. Who knows what we may learn from our great-grandson.

One son taught me about responsibility. He was not quite three when our third son was born. He took such good care of his little brothers. When we told him we were getting the first baby, he said he didn't want a baby - he wanted a goat. When we told him a few months later, we were getting a baby, he said "we just got a baby." But he took care of his brothers - he fed them and he drug them around by the neck - I think that's why the youngest grew up to be 6 foot seven. And he worried so much about his daddy and me, especially on vacation. He was always afraid that we were going to turn the wrong way and get lost or wouldn't find a place to sleep.

I learned about discipline from another son - He cried the first day I left him at kindergarten and he cried every day when I left him for the next six weeks. I would hold his hand, open the classroom door, the teacher would take his other hand, I would pull my hand away from him, and leave. After six weeks of that, one night Thomas looked him in the eye and said "You are not to cry at kindergarten anymore. He replied "OK". And he didn't.

I learned about Germs and Generosity from the other son. Up until the day he died, he would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him. Now as a child, for some reason he had a big issue with germs - but he was generous even then. Consequently if you said "Can I have a bite of that candy bar?", he would just give you the whole thing because he didn't want to get your germs.

A mother's children are the prettiest, the smartest, the sweetest, in the whole world. So are her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.

Mothers never stop loving their kids.

You know else I'm thankful for - God never stops loving us!