Mother’s Day 2013 (Super-Moms)
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 5/12/2013
All this week our local Christian radio station (WBGL) has been paying tribute to supermoms! They’ve been inviting listeners to call in and answer the question, “What moment made you believe your mom/wife was a superhero?” Some of the examples I’ve heard include Josiah, who said of his mom: “When I was a little kid whenever I had a sleepover she would always make super good chocolate pancakes super-fast! I believe God gave her that power so we would not be hungry.”
Then there’s PJ, who said about his mom: “When I was a teenager, I was playing soccer with some friends on the lawn outside. I was not wearing shoes and accidentally kicked a tree. It split my toe open. My mom put me on her back and carried me several blocks to a nearby emergency room where I got stitches. This wasn’t the first time she did that. Another time I was riding an exercise bike without shoes on, and my foot got stuck in the bike. I screamed! My mom heard me from the laundry room, ran upstairs, got my foot loose, and then carried me to a nearby emergency room. As I reflect on this, I am guessing she has super hearing, super strength, and super love!”
Of course, identifying moms as superheroes isn’t an original idea. I saw a coffee mug recently that had printed on it: “I’m a mom. What’s your superpower?” There’s even a game you can download on your smartphone called Supermom, where you have to change diapers and burp babies faster than your opponent so you can earn the title Supermom.
So I contemplated this week what special powers and abilities a Supermom would need to have. What does it take to be a supermom? Well, the Bible gives a variety of answers to that question I think. So I choose three powers that seem to be the most essential to being a super heroic Awesome-Mom. This first is the power of prayer.
• THE POWER OF PRAYER
I remember a Mother’s Day card I saw that was really cute. It was a great big card written in a little child’s printing. On the front was a little boy with untied sneakers. He had a wagon, and toys were everywhere. He had a little cut on his face and there were smudges all over this card. It read, “Mom, I remember that little prayer you used to say for me every day.” Then you open it up, and inside was the prayer: “God help me if you ever do that again!”
There’s no question that a Mom’s life can be chaotic. Sometimes we’re so busy, tired, and stressed that we feel we don’t have time to pray. Yet these are the days we need to be talking with God the most. When you pray—for yourself, your kids, or others in need—you can’t help feeling a sense of God’s love for you and your family. You’re reminded of his awesome power and how capable he is of handling your situation. You begin to feel the love, joy, and peace that come to us from God’s Spirit.
The apostle Paul wrote, “I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them…so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:1-2 NLT). Certainly that applies to moms and their kids. Pray for your kids so you can live a peaceful and quiet life!
Jesus, even though he was never a mother, modeled the importance of praying for our children. The Bible says, “Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. The disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’” (Matthew 19:13-14 NIV).
I’ll never forget the time that my son was three years old and I was tucking him into bed, when he asked if he could have some Superman fruit snacks, which he was able to have at bedtime the night before. I apologized and told him that they we all gone. He was a little heartbroken, but he didn’t cry. Instead, as we said our prayers together, he proceeded to plead with God to give him just a couple of Superman fruit snacks. As he continued praying, I quickly ran through my mental notes on prayer. How was I going to explain to a three-year-old that prayer isn’t about magically getting things from God, but about getting God himself? Well, as soon as he said “Amen,” I place one hand on the bed next to him and immediately felt something underneath it. I turned my hand over to discover two Superman fruit snacks which he apparently dropped the night before and had been laying on his bed unnoticed for the past twenty-four hours. Now, I know they were dry and stale, but I didn’t care. I just said, “Yeshua, look!” His eyes lit up, he thanked God, hugged me and popped those day-old fruit snack right in his mouth. I think that was the happiest I’ve ever seen him. And I believe to this day that God had that whole experience planned out as a way of instilling in my son at an early age that God does hear and answer our prayers!
Those moments stick with a child. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
So when a tornado of chaos strikes your home, why not gather for a brief time of family prayer? The chaos may not subside immediately, but you’ll be able to deal with it better and your kids with be blessed by it. Supermoms rely on the power of prayer.
• THE POWER OF PATIENCE
Furthermore, I think Supermoms are equipped with the power of patience. The Bible says in the simplest terms, “Love is patient” (1 Corinthians 13:4). And that certainly applies to a mom’s love for her children! In fact, parenthood provides a unique opportunity to discover the real meaning of patience.
The Greek word used here for patience is a descriptive one. It figuratively means “taking a long time to boil.” Think about a pot of boiling water. The water boils quickly when the flame is high. It boils slowly when the flame is low. Patience keeps the burner low. That’s a helpful clarification, don’t you think?
Patience isn’t naïve. It doesn’t ignore misbehavior. It just keeps the flame low. It waits. It listens. It’s slow to boil. The Bible puts it this way: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19 NIV). And that’s a power that every Supermom must have.
It isn’t easy though.
I heard a story this week about a little boy who was misbehaving one night when his mom was trying to get him to go to bed. Dad had gone to a meeting and his mom just wanted to get all the kids in bed and have a little bit of piece after her stressful day. Long after the little boy had been tucked in for the night, he started the classic drink of water routine: "Mommy, I need a drink of water." His exhausted mom sweetly but sternly reminded him that he’d already had a drink and needs to go back to bed, but every few minutes she’d hear the pitter-patter of little feet come running down the hall to top of the stairs. This goes on for over an hour, when finally the exasperated mom reached the limit of her patience and shouted, "Enough! If you get out of bed one more time, I’m going to come up there and paint your back porch red!"
For a moment it was quiet. Then a little voice drifted down the stairs, "Mommy, when you come up to paint my porch would you bring me a glass of water?"
Patience isn’t easy and it doesn’t come naturally. But when we stop listening and start shouting angry threats with raised voices, it crushes our kids spirits and teaches them to act the same way. Thankfully, patience is a fruit of God’s Spirit, so the more you rely on the power of prayer, the more powerful your patience will be. And remember, the Bible says, “God is being patient with you” (2 Peter 3:9). And if God is being patient with you, then surely you can pass that patience on to your children.
• THE POWER OF PLAYTIME
Finally, in addition to the power of prayer and the power of patience, I think that Supermoms understand the power of playtime. Let me share a Scripture with you that I think was written specifically with mothers in mind: “It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working… for God gives rest to his loved ones. Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him” (Psalm 127:2-3 NLT).
I think the point of this verse is that God doesn’t intend for you to work 24/7. Rather God wants you to relax a little and enjoy your children—especially while they’re little, because they grow up so fast. And for some moms this a real challenge.
I don’t care if you are stay-at-home mom, or a working mom, or a single mom—your job is tough! I know that. It’s a never ending battle against dirty dishes, piles of laundry, and crayon covered walls. Earlier this week my wife discovered lip-prints all over our bedroom mirror. Apparently, our three-year-old girl got into mommy’s lipstick and then kissed herself over and over in the mirror!
God knows that moms can work non-stop from early in the morning until late at night, but God doesn’t want your to-do list take priority over your enjoying your family.
Someone once said, “Good moms have dirty dishes, messy kitchens, sticky floors and happy kids.” The point, of course, isn’t that it’s better to living in a squalor, but that’s it’s better to get a little behind on all your daily chores than to miss out on playing freeze tag in the back yard, or building a Lego mansion in the living room, or coloring a picture that will hang on the refrigerator with pride.
There are over 24,000,000 articles and blogs on the internet about the importance of playing with your kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing Monopoly, or having a Nerf gun war, or building a fort with couch cushions—this is the stuff memories are made of. And it doesn’t matter how old your kids are. As someone once said, “Families that play together, stay together.”
That’s one of the things I love most about my wife. When I saw that WBGL wanted people to call or write in about the moments that made you believe your wife or mother was a superhero I couldn’t help myself. This is what I wrote:
There are moments nearly every day that remind me that my wife, Ashley, is a Supermom! Not only does she conquer heaping piles of laundry, whip up a healthy dinner faster than a speeding bullet, and raise three children (with not nearly enough help from me), but she is literally a superhero on top of it all. She has been Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, and a whole host of other super-heroines on multiple occasions. Just last night she donned her Black Widow costume and wig (from the Avengers) and posed for pictures and signed autographs at a Relay for Life event helping to raise money for cancer patients. She has visited cancer-ridden kids and burn victims at Saint John's Children's Hospital as Wonder Woman. She's read "The Superhero ABCs" to elementary children as Supergirl at our local elementary school's book fair. But the most meaningful moments are when she dons her cape and flies around the living room with our three kids, saving the universe and shaping our children's imaginations.
That's why my wife is a Supermom!
Conclusion:
I’ll bet I’m not the only one here this morning who could write a paragraph about what makes your wife or your mother a Supermom! And, listen, being a supermom doesn’t mean being a perfect mom. There’s no such thing really.
But if you’ll rely on the power of prayer, trusting in God to give you patience to endure the tough times, and take time away from the chores and everyday demands to play with your kids, smoothing them with your love, then you can bet they’ll grow up thinking their mom is a superhero!
Maybe you’re not a mom, or maybe you didn’t have a super mom growing up. I think that’s one of the reasons God gave us the church. When Jesus’ disciples told him that his mother and brothers were looking for him, he responded by pointing to the room-full of believers and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:49-50).
Invitation:
The church is God’s eternal family—and he wants you to be a part of it! If you’d like to know more about that, or you’re ready to be born again into God’s family, then please come talk to me while we stand and sing.
