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Mother

MOTHER

By George W. Sinquefield

        What is a mother? A teacher had given her class a science lesson on magnets. In a follow up test, one question read, "My name starts with 'M' and has six letters and I pick up things. What am I?" She was surprised to find that half the class answered the question, not with magnet but with mother.

        The following is by a lady named Louise Shattuck as she answers the question, "What is a mother?"

        "Do you know that Webster defines a mother as 'a female parent'? This is the under statement of all time, and I would like to tell Mr. Webster why his description should be revised.

        A mother is a walking encyclopedia who is expected to know Stan Musial's batting average, how to tie a half hitch, and where somebody left last Sunday's comics. She must answer unhesitatingly such questions as where the sun goes at night, how jet propulsion works, what the principal exports of Thailand are, and where baby kittens come from.

        A mother is a master mechanic who can get a trouser leg out of a bicycle chain, and can fix anything with cellophane tape and a hairpin. She is a plumber who knows that the water will not run out of the bathtub because the tissue paper sails have come off the children's boats and are clogging the drain. She is an electrician who can make the electric train back up without blowing a fuse.

        A mother is a practical nurse who knows how to make a splint for a bird's broken wing. She must also be able to remove splinters and loose teeth painlessly, stop an ear ache in the middle of the night, and cure a case of measles before the fourth grade picnic.

        A mother is a detective who finds the missing mate to every sock. When her scissors and flashlight disappear, she can recover them long before the culprits plead guilty.

        A mother is an untiring seamstress who sews on Scout badges, designs tricky patches for jeans, replaces lost buttons, and lets down and takes up dozens of hems. She must also be able to make such a beautiful halo and pair of wings that the school play audience will never notice that the angel's two front teeth are missing.

        She is a sage who is wise enough to know when her son has reached the stage at which he would rather die than be kissed in public, and when her daughter's best friend has won the admiration of the only boy in the world. Yet she is also an innocent who never ceases to wonder at the miracle of life when the first crocus peeks through the snow and the first blue egg appears in a robin's next!

        A mother is an heiress! Although she may not feel wealthy when she is trying to stretch the family budget to include braces on teeth, she is rich in rewards. She is rich in the pride that engulfs her when her teenager offers to mow the neighbors' lawn while they are away on vacation, or her Little Leaguer insists on pitching with a sprained finger rather than let his team mates down. She is rich in investments: As she watches her small daughter tenderly tucking her doll into bed, she hopes her child will grow up to know the happiness of being a mother. It is then that she knows, Mr. Webster, that a mother deserves the longest definition in the world!" -- Louise Shattuck

        Many tributes have been paid to mother and she deserves them all if she is a Christian mother and raising her children the way God wants them to be raised.

        R. A. Torrey -- "There is no nobler occupation upon earth, no higher calling than that of being a mother, a true mother."

        Lincoln -- "No man is poor who has a Godly mother."

        May 11th is the day we honor cooks, waitresses, nurses, teachers, maids, chauffeurs, psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and bankers or th use the generic name -- Mother.

        There is in all this cold, hollow world, no fount of deep, strong, death less love, save that within a mother's heart. A mother is she who can take the place of all others, but whose place no one else can take. A mother is everything -- our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, our strength in weakness. The mother, in her office holds the key of the soul and she it is who stamps the coin of character and makes the being who would be a savage, but for her gentle cares, a Christian man.

        Napoleon said, "Let France have her good mothers and she will have good sons."

        St. Augustine said, "If I am Thy child, O God, it is because thou didst give me such a mother."

        Henry Ward Beecher said, "The future of society is in the hands of mothers. If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it."

        Theodore Roosevelt: "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 boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of great 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 one supreme asset of national life; she is more important by far than the successful statesman, or businessman or artist, or scientist."

        Kate Douglas Wiggin said, "Most all of the other beautiful things in life come by twos or threes, by dozens and hundreds. There are plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins but only one mother in all the wide, wide world."

        Lincoln -- "All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

        Emerson -- "Men are what their mothers make them."

        Alcott -- Where there is a mother in the house, matters speed well."

        R. A. Torrey -- "There is no nobler occupation upon earth , no higher calling than that of being a mother, a true mother."

        Joseph Baker -- "When it comes to a task worthwhile, there is nothing in the world as heroic, as thrilling, or challenging, as exhausting, or satisfying as the task of motherhood."

        A Spanish proverb -- "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy."

        Arnold H. Glasow -- "What men owe to their mothers is a debt that few pay."

I.   Mother's Love

        The nearest thing to God's love in this world is a mother's love. It is the agape type love, the unselfish love. She loves her husband and children for their sake, for their good. Who can measure a mother's love. It is nearer the love of Christ than anything this side of Heaven.

        Christ gave himself for us.

Galatians 1:4 (KJV)

4Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

        Just as surely a Christian mother has given herself to her family. Whether she be yellow, red, black or white, there is something so sublime, so sweet, so beautiful about a mother's love that we know it was born from above.

        Neglect your business and it will leave you, neglect your garden and it will starve you, neglect your engine and it will wreck you, neglect your mother and she will love you -- love you though her heart is bleeding in the dust.

        A mother's love is like: 1. An extra tire -- it gives us something to go on when self respect is punctuated and every thing gone flat. 2. An emergency brake -- which gives us and holds us back at the precipice when the ordinary checks of society fails. 3. A life belt -- which helps us to struggle to shore when our plans and our manhood is gone.

        I recently read how a boy was picked up unconscious on the streets of an Eastern city. He was taken to a hospital, and on the next morning they found that he had brain fever. He was tossing from side to side on his bed, saying, "Mother! Mother! Mother!"

        The kindhearted physician attending him said to the nurse, "If we could find that boy's mother, he might get well." They looked in his ragged coat and in a side pocket found an address of a lady in a distant city. They wired her a description o the boy and his condition. In a little while a message came back, "I will start on the first train; please keep my boy alive"

        The physician said to the nurse, "Now do your best, and if we can keep him alive till she comes, he will get well." The nurse did all she could for him, but he kept saying, "Mother! Mother! Mother!"

        After a while came another telegram saying, "I am on my way; please keep my boy alive." Later on another message arrived saying, "I will be there in a few hours; keep my boy alive."

        The physician said to the nurse, "You must do something. Go in there and take him by the hand; tell him you are his mother; tell him anything. If you can just keep him alive until she comes we can save his life."

        The good nurse went to his bed, and, kneeling down, she took his hand in hers, smoothed back his air and said, "Son, don't you know me? Do you know your mother?" But without opening his eyes, he kept tossing to and fro, saying in a voice which was now only a whisper, "Mother! Mother! Mother!"

        Presently the train which the mother was on arrived in the city. She hurried to the hospital, entered the ward, rushed over to her boy and, kneeling by the side of the cot, took his thin hand in hers. With the other hand she smoothed back his hair, pressed a kiss on his lips and said, "Son, Mother's come." He turned his face toward her and, without opening his eyes, whispered "Mother" just once, then dropped into a peaceful sleep and awoke on his road to recovery. This shows the power of a mother's love.

II.   Her Love Is God-like In That She Watches Over Her Own.

Matthew 6:25 through Matthew 6:32 (KJV)

25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

        There is a very important story about a prosperous farmer who invited an old school friend to spend a weekend on his farm. They walked all over the place looking at the lush crops about to be harvested and the herds of sleek cattle, and especially at the great flocks of sheep. The friend had seen sheep from this flock exhibited at state and county fairs. They seemed to win all the prizes. He said to his farmer friend, "I've never seen finer sheep. How do you do it?" The farmer answered, "They are fine sheep because I take care of my lambs."

        "She looketh well to the ways of her household."

        Victor Hugo tells a story of two soldiers walking across a devastated field just after the French revolution. The french people were starving. The soldiers saw a stirring in the bushes and investigating they found a starving mother and two children. One of the soldiers took out a loaf of bread and handed it to the mother. She broke it in two pieces and gave to the two children. The other soldier asked, "Is it because the mother is not hungry?" Answer -- "No, it is because she is a mother!"

        During a preliminary inspection of a Royal Ambassador camp, the director found an umbrella neatly rolled inside the bed roll of a small camper. Since the umbrella was not listed as a necessary item, the director asked the lad to explain. The lad countered neatly with the question: "Sir, did you ever have a mother?"

        "All mothers are physically handicapped -- they only have two hands." -- E. C. McKenzie

        They only have two hands but they use them to serve their loved ones.

III.   She Is Very Unselfish.

        The one thing mothers have never learned to do is to live for themselves. She has taken up her cross and died to selfishness.

        A three year old climbed into her mother's lap and said, "Mommy, I love you." As she felt her mother's face and touched her mother's nose she said, "I love your nose, Mommy." She said the same thing about her mother's ear, about her mother's chin, her cheek, her hair, and finally she said, "Mommy, show me your heart."

        Her mother hesitated for a moment then said, "Honey, look into my eyes and see what you can see. Look way down deep." The little girl got real close and looked intently into her mother's eyes. Then she said, "Mommy, I can see way down and the only thing I can see is myself."

        When president Wilson was governor of New Jersey, he signed requisition papers to have Charles L. Brown brought to Baltimore to answer an indictment for deserting his family. His wife worked for months to provide for her children. Then she went to the hospital to give birth to another child. Soon her money was all gone. It was then that she sold a quantity of her blood to a lady who needed a transfusion. She said, "I would sell more of my blood and even sacrifice my life if it would keep my children from suffering."

IV.   The Consecrated Christian Mother Wants God To Use Her Children.

        She will explain to them how to be saved. She'll tell them of God's love and how Jesus died for them. She'll lead them to Jesus.

        John Wanamaker, one of America's richest merchants, was asked, "What was your most glorious hour?" He answered without hesitation, "It was when I was a child and my mother took my two baby hands and folded them in prayer as she pointed me to God.

        One man asked this question, "Will your children come to you, someday in Heaven and say to you, as I will say to my mother? When I arrive in that heavenly city where never comes sorrow or care, I'll say to my dear precious mother, 'It was you who invited me here.' To Christ alone to be the glory; He my sins in his body did bear; yet to Heaven I might not have come, had you not invited me here.

        She will gladly give them into the service of God.

        The mother of Dr. Lee Scarborough (great preacher and former president of Louisville Seminary) only a few hours after his birth crawled to the bed of her infant baby and gave him to God.

        The Leavell boys of Mississippi (three I believe) all served the Lord in a wonderful way. One of them was president of the New Orleans Baptist Seminary. An old black man heard one bragging on those boys and he said, "Boss, don't you brag on those boys so much. You brag on their mamma. I was here on the farm and heard her give everyone of them to God before they were born."

V.   Her Influence Will Live On To Bless And Guide Her Children.

        One said, "When I look back and think of my mother, the one thing I remember most is her Christianity."

        Christian mothers are weaving a cord of influence that will steady their children to the close of life's day.

        Richard Cecil, an eminent preacher of London tells that when he was young he tried his utmost to be an infidel but his mother's beautiful and eloquent Christian life was too much for him. He could never answer that.

        Dr. R. G. Campbell, a famous British preacher had fine sons all of who became ministers of the gospel. One day a visitor in their home asked a personal question, "Which of you six is the best preacher?" Their united answer was, "Mother." Of course, Mrs Campbell had never preached a sermon but her life was a constant sermon on the love of God. The life of a Christian who abides in God's love is a powerful witness for God. She preached the gospel by her life. St. Francis of Assisi said, "Preach the gospel all the time and when necessary use words." That is what Mrs. Campbell, mother of five preachers, did.

        Talmage, another of God's great servants, said this about his mother's influence: "It is a good many years ago now since we folded those hands as they began their last sleep in the village cemetery, but those hands are stretched out toward me today and they are just as warm and just as gentle as when I sat on her knee at five year of age. I shall never shake off those hands. I do not want to. They have helped me a thousand times and I do not expect to have a trouble or a trial between this and my grave where those hands will not help me."

        Senator Pratt of Indiana, when young, was given $22,000 to carry on horse back from northern Indiana to Cincinnati. After several days of pushing through the forest, he came in sight of the Ohio river. The devil came to Mr. Pratt and said, "There is the Ohio, rolling down to the Gulf, the gateway to all the world. Sell you horse, board one of these gay river boats and the world lies before you." The old senator said, "I recall the fact that this thought was the tenant of my mind for a moment but only for a moment. Away over rivers and mountains, a thousand miles distant in a humble farm house on a bench I saw a dear old fashioned mother reading to her boy from the oracles of God and that saved me."

        Mother, God can use your influence long after you're gone to bring some wayward son or daughter to Him.

Hebrews 11:4 (KJV)

4By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

        Your influence will speak long after you're gone form this world. As one has said, "If a child's mother is a Christian, true and sweet, her influence will sustain that child throughout life. Her influence will give him strength in his time of temptation and weakness."

VI.   Mother Needs -- Must Have -- Jesus As Her Savior If She Is To Be The Right Kind Of Mother.

        Mother, is He your Lord and Savior? The baby has no skies but mother's eyes, nor any God above but mother's love. Mother must have the Lord's help in bringing up her children as God wants them brought up.

        Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would help us in our Christian life and service.

John 14:16 (KJV)

16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

        The Living Bible puts it this way, "No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm, I will come to your."

Hebrews 11:6 (KJV)

6But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Romans 8:26 (KJV)

26Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Psalm 54:4 (KJV)

4Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul.

Philippians 4:12 through Philippians 4:13 (KJV)

12I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

        It has been well said that to be a wife and a mother in the age in which we are living is a tremendous task and you cannot do it without Christ. I don't know what a woman does without Christ. I do not know how you do your work. I do not know how you handle your responsibilities without the help of Christ. Give your life to Christ, to be the kind of wife and mother you ought to be. Your husband deserves a Christian wife, a dedicated wife. Your children deserve to have a Christian mother.

        To be the best mother calls for all she has. It is not easy. In fact, it is very difficult as this poem reveals. The bravest battles that were ever fought, Shall tell you where and when? On the maps of the world you'll find them not; They were fought by the mother of men. Nay, not with the battle or cannon's shot, With sword or nobler pen; Nay, not with the eloquent words or thought From the lips of wonderful men; But deep in a walled-up woman's heart, A woman that would not yield, But bravely and silently bore her part, Lo, there is the battlefield. No marshaling of troops, no bivouac song, No banners to gleam and wave; But, oh, these battles they last so long -- From babyhood to the grave.

        The author of the book "Out of the Night" recalls that amid all his sinful wanderings, he ever cherished the memory of a good mother -- a mother who sold the family silver to buy books, Bibles, boots, and blankets for him. The last time he saw her was at Hamburg through the train window. He says, "She was shabby, frail, sad but invincibly loyal."

        Oh may God grant that the mothers of America -- of this world will be invincibly loyal to the task given them by God -- that of bringing children into the world and training, influencing them for God and His service.