May 20, 2024
Mother’s Day provides us an opportunity to thank the Good Lord for blessing us with this awesome and extraordinary woman who helped us to see our need for Him. We take time to celebrate how He used her as a light in our lives and a standard of virtue for all to see. There are historic, family, and spiritual reasons we should celebrate Mother’s Day.
From the inception of the calendar celebration of Mother’s Day, the United States has always highlighted the contribution of mothers in this nation. Throughout the years, we have appreciated our mothers with gifts of many kinds, services of many types, and experiences of many types, to tell our mothers how much we value and appreciate them. As we all recall, our mothers have been our doctors, chefs, cheerleaders, daily schedulers, laundry supervisors, mediators, advocates, judges, and even our prophets as we were warned of the consequences of associating with morally disreputable people.
As matriarch, our mother maintains the sentimental center of the family. For example, our mother spends much of her time during family gatherings, vacations, and holidays ensuring we are enjoying the moment. She knows our particular diets, our favorite foods and drinks, and our preferred music. Yes, she even knows to mix hymns and contemporary worship.
Our mothers are the primary parent who will call to just check on us. Mothers will even persistently give us lists of others who, in her opinion, need to hear from us. Our mothers tend to be the primary parent who requests that we attend all of the family occasions and special events.
Many of us grew up with a mother who is a true worshipper. She knows the value of our Lord’s “Amazing Grace” and she ingratiates herself in the “Blessed Assurance” of her salvation. She knows how to “Go, Tell it on the Mountain” to anyone who would listen about the Good News of Christ.
I believe that when Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:4, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” that these “weapons” are primarily the armor of God (Ephesians 6) as part of our defensive capability and the Fruit of the Spirit as part of our offensive capability. Our mothers are instrumental in teaching us to how to wield these offensive weapons of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23 NABRE). Our mothers teach us through trial and error (for her and us) that the effective use of the Fruit of the Spirit pleases God and matures us to be the best version of ourselves.
Unfortunately “the world, the flesh, and the devil” have concocted schemes to deny motherhood any respectful recognition by convincing women to delay marriage and motherhood to pursue wealth and power. For example, our spiritual enemies have placed cultural pressure on women to master STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) as a more important goal than to be personally responsible for conceiving, giving birth, and being the first teachers of the next generation. By the grace of God, both STEM and motherhood can be hotly pursued and celebrated. The enemy has even convinced too many that the image of a good mother has something to do with her allowing “a village” rather than a Godly home raise children. The results of this relinquishment are tragic for the mother and child. However, as a virtuous woman, our mothers are able to see the enemy’s tricks and she has learned to go to the Lord in prayer to overcome these challenges.
We Christians celebrate Mother’s Day by thanking the Lord for blessing us with this incredible person in our lives who is steadfast and compassionate on our behalf. Some of her tactics and strategies can at times seem confusing in the moments we witness them, but years later we reflect on how intelligent those efforts were.
Happy Mother’s Day to all those who have any influence in the lives of our children.
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Mali Currington is the senior pastor of Faith Community Church in Redding, California. This column was originally published by the California Southern Baptist Convention.
