How can I say, “Happy Mother’s Day” to a mom who will not see or hear from her child this year, or who lives with regret or sadness about her relationship with that son or daughter? The best thing I can say is that there is hope. There is no prodigal child that cannot be restored to his family. There is no broken relationship that cannot be repaired. There is no loss or grief that will not be redeemed.
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Sweet Memories of Heirlooms and Traditions When I was a younger woman and lived at home with my parents, my mom and I would get ready for Christmas together. I can recall with crystal clarity loading the stereo with a mixture of Christmas albums that would play while we baked cookies or made ornaments for the tree. I had my favorite Christmas songs and made sure that those albums were among the first played. It wasn’t the Christmas season until Frosty the Snowman was blaring over the speakers of the Hi-fi. The Important Role of Music Music is so...
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I love Jesus, but I really don’t like Christmas. The pressure to find the perfect gift for the people on my list (most of that pressure coming from myself) rattles me every year, and I always dread the physical pain of browsing in stores and standing in lines. These days, I do most of my shopping online, but even that can be draining when you have no idea what someone wants or needs, and you really want the gift to be perfect. Gifts and material things are nice, but just as the first Christmas was not about the gifts of the Magi, so this Christmas must not be about the presents.
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Most of us are not being threatened physically but sometimes, honestly, we act like it! We are so fearful of stirring up an argument or offending someone with the Gospel in our conversations, that we become as anxious as if it were a threat of physical harm. This is definitely something that needs to change, and the only way that will happen is if we line up our hearts with the truth. We do this by prayer, as Peter and John and their friends did. We ask the Lord to understand the threat that we are perceiving, and help us overcome our fear. He alone can supply the boldness we need to speak the truth in love to our families, so we must ask Him directly for it.
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By God’s grace, my son was not killed in combat. I will never be a Gold Star Mother, and for that I am thankful. But I certainly have a different perspective on what this day is about than I did as a child; it is a day of solemn remembrance out of respect for what has been done on my behalf. Brave, brave young men and women who left home and family to fight for us and for those who could not overcome evil alone.
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