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Thoughts on Mother’s Day 2017

Today is Mother’s Day. Since it is a Sunday, I wrote a nice little sermon for the mothers in the audience. My text was Matthew 20:20-23. This is the story of the mother of James and John taking them to Jesus and asking Jesus to give them the seats on either side of him in the kingdom to come. The focus of the sermon was that Salome (possibly their mother’s name), wanted the best for her boys. On Mother’s day we need to remember that for the most part, generally speaking, mothers want the best for their children and the best has to be nothing less than Jesus Christ. If a mother is going to do anything lasting and meaningful for her children, introducing them to Jesus Christ is the bear minimum.

Janelle and the ladies of the church worked yesterday to create chocolate dipped strawberries. This is an annual tradition, that the mothers who come to church on Mother’s day get chocolate dipped strawberries. They always seem to love it. So for a mother’s day on Sunday at church, it was Christ centered, and mother focused. Not bad and better than many Mother’s Day sermons.

Then after church we came home and had lunch. I walked around the neighborhood to close my rings. Then we drove up to Casa Sandoval to collect my mother. Janelle and I gave her a box of chocolate dipped strawberries and we took her out to Casper’s hotdogs. We spent a good time in the restaurant eating our hotdogs and talking. Then we drove out Castro Valley Blvd all the way to hwy 680 looking at the nice large homes. We then returned mother to her residence and came home. So with church and visiting with my mother, I believe it was a good mother’s day.

While in Casper’s, a mother and her adult son were talking. He was trying to pay for their hotdogs and his mother was trying to stop him. She said, “You have done enough already,” and his response was “Ic Ould never do enough for my mother.” She wasn’t buying it and put down that thought with some strong words. However, the son was correct. The time, effort, sacrifice and tears that another puts into raising a son can never be paid back. I believe my mother has done immeasurably great things for my brother and I. I know I can never repay her. With my mother in a demented state, it is all I can do to comfort her and take her out for a hotdog, although there is a good chance she will not remember.

So on this Mother’s Day, I consider all the mothers of the great theologians who have spoken into my life. I ponder the mothers in the Old Testament who spared people like Jacob into greatness, although she taught him some bad habits. I know what the advance of Christ across the world and across the ages is due to godly women who raised godly children who had families and who raised godly children to pass, from generation to generation for millennia and to spread the gospel across the world. Praise God for godly mothers.

#Thoughts on Mother's Day#

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