Honour your mothers - give words that won't wilt or melt or be forgotten

Honour you mother - give words than won't wilt or melt or be forgotten.

According to Hallmark Mother’s Day is the third largest greeting card holiday of the year after Christmas and Valentines Day.  It's not obviously a good day for everyone.  But it is a day available for us to redeem by appreciating and honouring mothers - our own biologically, but also those who have nurtured and nourished us spiritually and emotionally.  

Yes there are flowers and chocolates and date nights and encouragement to the kids that they make breakfast in bed.  But what about some words?  Not just sweet words but weighty,  significant, substantial words that speak profoundly.  Words that are mentally and physically stored because she wants to bring them forth to her heart often.  Words that gladden and are joy-bringing and life-sustaining.  Craft some words; give it time and thought and honour the mothers God has given you as they should be honoured.

Be inspired by words of others who have said what you want to say.

“To be a mother is the greatest vocation in the world. No being has a position of such great power and influence. She holds in her hands the destiny of nations, for to her is necessarily committed the making of the nation’s citizens.” 

        —Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911), evangelist, suffragist, and author. 

“I looked on child-rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring it.”

        —Rose Kennedy, JFK’s mother

“An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.”

        —Spanish Proverb

“There is no assignment on earth that requires the array of skills and understanding needed by a mom in fulfilling her everyday duties. She must be a resident psychologist, physician, theologian, educator, nurse, chef, taxi driver, fire marshal and occasional police officer.”

        —James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family

“Try to raise up mothers...mothers are the want of the world.”

        —Catherine Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army

“Who is it that loves me and will love me forever with an affection which no chance, no misery, no crime of mine can do away? It is you, my mother.”

        —Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer

Use words from God in the Bible that are true to your mother.

Proverbs 31 - read it, use it, honour your mother with the Words of God.

Use words that show how your 'mother' has done her ultimate duty of showing you God.

Though never directly addressed as "Mother” God is described as like a good, loving and protective mum. God even compares himself to a mother: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15)

Other examples: A mother in labour [Isaiah 42:14]; a mother who never forgets her children [Isaiah 49:14-15]; a mother who comforts her children [Isaiah 66:12-13]; a mother who births and protects [Isaiah 46:3-4 or Deuteronomy 32:18].  

Though less dominant in the Bible and less familiar to us, this is of vital importance to understanding what God is like.  Has your mother done this?  Tell her, beautifully.

Start thinking now so your words might just last a lifetime!

Don't buy last minute flowers or end of line chocolates.  Start thinking now.  Write things down.  Get others advise.  Use a dictionary!  Honour your mother with beautiful, rich, meaningful, lasting, crafted words.  Write them in a letter; record them on a DVD; say them with meaning.

[Dedicated to two marvelous mothers - my own, and Hannah my team mate in parenting.]