Mother's Day

This Sunday is Mother’s Day.  Are you aware of the origins of the day? In 1907, a lady by the name of Anna Jarvis held a memorial service at her late mother’s church in Grafton, West Virginia. Within five years nearly every state in the union was observing the day, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made it a national holiday.

            Mrs. Jarvis originally promoted the wearing of a white carnation as tribute to one’s mother, but later the custom developed to wear a red or pink carnation to honor a living mother, and a white one to remember a deceased mother.  Later in life Jarvis, upset because of the over commercialization of the day, sought to abolish the holiday she helped to originate. 

            Mother’s Day is indeed big business these days. Restaurants, floral shops, card companies, and several other industries count on the revenue spent, at least in some cases, to placate the guilt of children and husbands.  Ah, it sounds so romantic when I say it like that, huh?

            Seriously though, Mother’s Day is a big deal.  How many of us are who we are and where we are because of the prayers and the concern of our mothers?  I am grateful for a Christian mother.  I can still hear her singing as she would prepare supper, work in the garden, and even as we would drive to school. 

            My mom was fiercely competitive.  She never let us win at checkers. She had played high school basketball, and as I grew up we had family games. Mom and I would face my dad and sister.  It was knock down/drag out!  Last ones standing won.  Oh, how I miss those days! 

            She’s been gone since 2005.  She was only 67.  But she left us a legacy.  I pray for the moms and grandmoms reading this. May you be faithful, first to the Lord, and then to your family.  May God use you to inspire and train your family to walk with Him. Happy Mother’s Day!