A missions director once met with the mother
of one of his agency’s missionaries and spent some time getting to know her. She
prepared tea for the director in her parlor and as they drank the tea, she
explained to him the difficulty of having a daughter on the mission field of
China and a son as a missionary in Sudan.
She loved and missed them dearly, but as she explained, her love for God
allowed her to let them follow His will for their lives. The mother went on to
describe the burden her son had for the Sudanese people.
For her special day Janet received an expensive tube of
Retin-A from her two teenage daughters. When she shared about her gift at a
luncheon with friends, they were all impressed that her girls were resourceful
enough to finagle a prescription medication to help diminish wrinkles. Realizing
this was such a unique gift, the ladies were curious as to what they gave her
for last Mother’s Day. Without a moment’s hesitation Janet replied, “The
wrinkles!”
A little boy forgot his lines in a Sunday school
presentation. His mother was in the front row to prompt him. She gestured and
formed the words silently with her lips, but it did not help. Her son’s memory
was blank. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered the cue, “I am the light
of the world.” the child beamed and with great feeling and a loud clear voice
said, “My mother is the light of the world.”
In his book, Moments for Mothers, Robert Strand wrote about
the conflicts of a family in Glasgow, Scotland. After years of rebellion, a
daughter finally rejected her parents, their values, and their faith. She set
out on her own to enjoy a life without restraints, but soon became enslaved to
her liberated choices.
A little girl was trying very hard to take care of her sick
mother. She did everything to make her mom feel more comfortable in bed, then
quietly slipped into the kitchen. She had seen her mother make hot tea for her
father when he was sick, so she set out to do the same for her ailing mom. With
cup and saucer in hand, she took the tea into the bedroom and her mother was
touched by this sweet act of compassion. The mother showered her daughter with
praise and then said, “I didn’t know you could make tea.”
Job description: Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings, weekends, and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.
On April 23, 2008, Dr. Michael DeBakey received the Congressional Gold Medal for his legacy in heart surgery. President Bush said, “His legacy is holding the fragile and sacred gift of human
life in his hands and returning it unbroken,” during the ceremony.
Dr. DeBakey invented many medical devices and operations, performed the first successful heart bypass operation and saved countless lives.
Here’s how several elementary school students answered the following
questions about moms:
Why did God make mothers? She’s the only one who knows where the Scotch tape is.
Mostly to clean the house.
How did God make
mothers? He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
Magic, plus superpowers and a lot of stirring.
God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger
parts.
Salary.com conducted a survey in 2010 that attempted to place a monetary value on the work of a stay-at-home mom. They determined that if mothers were to be paid for their ten most common tasks in the home (laundry machine operator, janitor, van driver, computer operator, housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, chief executive officer, psychologist, and facilities manager) they would be paid $117,855.86. The largest piece of the pie came from overtime pay as a man works from sun to sun, but a woman’s work is never done.
Four brothers left home for college and became successful doctors
and lawyers. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They
discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who lived far
away in another city.
A thirty-six year old mother was
discovered to be in the advanced stages of terminal cancer. One doctor advised
her to spend her remaining days on vacation. A second physician offered her the
hope of living two more years with the grueling side effects of radiation. She penned
the following words to her three small children:
A
mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor
replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice
demanded death.
“But
I don’t ask for justice,” the mother explained. “I plead for mercy.”
“But
your son does not deserve mercy,” Napoleon replied.
“Sir,”
the woman cried, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I
ask for.”
“Well, then,” the emperor said, “I will have mercy.”
And he spared the woman’s son.
A woman was trying to get ketchup to come out of the jar. During her
struggle, the phone rang so she asked her four-year-old daughter to answer it. “It’s
the minister, Mommy,” the child said to her mother. Then she added, “Mommy
can’t come to the phone right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”
My twelve-year-old daughter asked me, “Mom, do you have a baby picture of yourself? I need it for a school project.”
I
gave her one without thinking to ask what the project was. A few days
later I was in her classroom for a parent-teacher meeting when I noticed
my face pinned to a mural the students had created. The title of their
project was “The oldest thing in my house.”
When the great painter Benjamin West was a young boy he decided
to draw a picture of his sister. He got out bottles of ink and succeeded in making a mess. When his
mother got home she said, “What a beautiful picture,” and kissed him. Later in
life he said, “That kiss made me a painter.”
One day a little girl noticed that her mother had several
strands of white hair sticking out in contrast to her brunette head.
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, “Why are
some of your hairs white, Mom?”
Her mother replied, “Well, every time that you do something
wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.” The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, “Momma,
how come all of Grandma’s hairs are white?”
