Mother's Day 2024 - If You Had A Mother Who....

If You Had A Mother Who….

Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:16; Ephesians 6:2-3; Genesis 16:1-6

Good morning, Strangers Rest and happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers present and those watching via live stream. The title of my Mother’s Day message is “If You Had a Mother Who ______.” I will fill in the blank throughout and at the end of this message.

Deuteronomy 5:16 says, “(16) Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” Likewise, Paul referenced this Scripture when he wrote in Ephesians 6:2-3, “(2) Honor your mother and father’, which is the first commandment with promise: (3) ‘That it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.’” When we read these two Scriptures, we find that Deuteronomy captures what God told Moses when He gave him the Ten Commandments and Paul was quoting from these Ten Commandments in his letter to the church at Ephesus. What stands out clearly is that our respect/honor for our mothers (and fathers) is so important to God that He attached a promise and/or warning to the commandment. This commandment is not one to be taken lightly even though many children probably do not even think about it when they are mouthing off to their parents.

Mother’s Days have been somewhat difficult for me as my mother died the Saturday before Mother’s Day in 1986. What has made it easier is celebrating my wife as a mother on this day and the other mother figures that God placed in my life after my mother died. And men, I want to say this up front, if you are married and your wife bore your children, even though she is not your mother you should celebrate her. I have interacted with men in the past who believed that since their wives were not their mother, they did not need to celebrate them. If you have taken that stance in the past, I want you to know that you were wrong and today is the first day of the rest of your life to get it right! Celebrate your wife!

Now, for me, I was and always shall be a “momma’s boy.” As a matter of fact, I am a card-carrying member of the “Momma’s Boys Club.” If you talk to anyone who knew me back in those days, they will confirm my lifelong membership. I truly loved my mother. We called her “Muddear”, which I thought was just our family’s name for her. But I have since learned that there are many “Muddears” in the south. My mother was special to me because of who she was and how she lived. I had a very close relationship with her until the day she died in 1986 when I was 25 years old. We could talk about everything and because I was in ministry, she often confided in me what she was thinking about certain things happening within her faith walk. Because of my mother, I learned as a child to respect her as there was no grey area as to what my rights were as a child. But I never doubted my mother’s love and support of me and my siblings.

I remember after I had gotten my first job as a teenager that I spent a lot of my money buying clothes. Growing up my brother and I were of similar size so we would share some of our clothes as brothers do. My parents did not have a lot of money so we wore our clothes until they literally wore out. I was one of those kids who put paper in the bottom of my shoes when the hole appeared. I was one of those, like others in our neighborhood, whose friends made fun of when the soles of my tennis shoes separated from the top and would make the flapping sound when I walked. Some of you know what I am talking about. So, when I started earning money after school, I spent some of my money on clothes. So, there was this one time when I was going out somewhere and my mother looked at me, smiled and said, “Boy you always want to dress like you have a million dollars and you don’t have a pot to pee in (she used another word but for this message this sounds better.” So, after Nikki and I got married and we got our first home on the base, I called my mother. I was acting all excited and she asked me what was wrong. I said “Muddear guess what?” Now she was starting to get excited too thinking I had some great news. When she asked me what was happening, I responded with “I finally got my own pot to pee in!!!” My mother immediately knew what I was talking about and busted out laughing and simply said “Praise God.” She was very proud of me and we laughed for a while after that.