What My Mother Taught Me

WHAT MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME

By

Jerry Falwell

The Los Angeles Times carried an article in 1995 with the title, “Things My Mother Told Me” that suggested:

1. Mind your manners and always write “thank you” notes.

2. Brush your hair.

3. Appearance matters.

4. Never marry a man in order to change him.

5. Stand up straight and clean your fingernails.

6. Eat everything on your plate and remember the starving children in the world.

7. Speak up.

8. If you ask for something, you may get it.

9. If you don’t ask, you may not get it.

10. Keep your mouth shut and your legs crossed.

11. Don’t ever do anything you wouldn’t want me to do.

I remember overhearing a godly mother tell her daughter, “Dress modestly; don’t advertise what is not for sale.”

The greatest thing about motherhood, is pouring your life into your child. How many times has a middle-aged mother disciplined her daughter, and then realized, “I’ve become my mother?” The truth is that we often become what our mothers have taught us. You can never deny the fact that you are what your mother has made you, you are your mother’s child.

When a child falls, bruises something, makes a mistake or is lost, what is the first thing they cry?

“Mommy, I need you!”

SOMEONE MUST BE YOUR PATH

We all know that our path to God is Jesus Christ. “I am the way, the truth, the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). A missionary told a story of being lost in an African jungle, and finally he came across a primitive village. He found a lady who could speak English, and volunteered to take him back to the missionaries’ compound. As they hacked their way through the jungle, the missionary asked, “Are you sure this is the right way home?” The native said, “Sir, in this jungle there is no pathway, I am the path . . . you must follow.”

While Jesus is our pathway to the Father, our mothers are our pathways into adulthood. When you get lost in the “jungle of this life,” it’s our mothers who lead us into maturity.

A. MOTHERS GIVE UP IDENTITY, REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE.

In the book, the Christian Family, by Larry Christiansen, he wrote about the “meanest mother in the world.”

“I had the meanest mother in the world.

While other kids ate candy for breakfast, I had to have cereal, eggs or toast.

When other had Cokes and candy for lunch, I had to eat a sandwich.

As you can guess, my supper was different than other kids’ also.

But at least I wasn’t alone in my sufferings.

My sister and two brothers had the same mean mother I did.

My mother insisted upon knowing where we were at all times.

You’d think we were on a chain-gang.

She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing.

She insisted if we said we’d be gone an hour –

That we be gone one hour or less – not one hour and one minute.

I am nearly ashamed to admit it, but she actually struck us.

Not once, but each time we had a mind of our own and did as we pleased.

That poor belt was used more on our seats than it was to hold up Daddy’s pants.

Can you imagine someone actually hitting a child just because he disobeyed?

Now you can see how mean she really was.

We had to wear clean clothes and take a bath.

The other kids always wore their clothes for days.

We reached the height of insults because she made our clothes herself –Just to save money.

Why, oh why, did we have to have a mother

who made us feel different from our friends?

The worst is yet to come.

We had to be in bed by nine each night and up at eight the next morning.

We couldn’t sleep till noon like our friends.

So while they slept – my mother actually had the nerve

to break the child-labor law.

She made us work.

We had to wash dishes, make beds, and learn to cook and all sorts of cruel things.

I believe she lay awake at night thinking up mean things to do to us.

She always insisted upon our telling the truth

and nothing but the truth, even if it killed us – and it nearly did.

By the time we were teenagers, she was much wiser,

And our life became even more unbearable.

None of this, tooting the horn of a car, for us to come running.

She embarrassed us to no end by making our dates and friends come to the door to get us.

If I spent the night with a girl friend,