Differences
of opinion and one’s approach to life usually occur because of differences of
understanding. I hope to broaden our
understanding today of the role of Mother and thus better honor her on her day
(Sunday, May 8, 2016).
I wish today
to write of mothers and potential mothers and men as they relate to motherhood. Mothers are not of just one type: Unwed women, mothers who have a loving and
supportive husband in the home, mothers of young children who do not have
husbands and fathers in the home, mothers who choose (or do not choose) to
spend most of their time out of the home due to employment demands or worldly
enticements, and grandmothers and teachers who so frequently have to deal with
the failures of deficient parenting all have very different perspectives of motherhood.
Mother’s Day
is a difficult time for many women. A
lot of guilt is associated with it. For
others it is a day in which they bask in the highly deserved honors that are
their due. All mothers know how
difficult it is to be a ‘good mother.’ Many
men do not realize that and are not the support they should be. Motherhood done rightly makes tremendous
demands on a woman—demands on her time, on her body, on her other options, on
her mental and emotional preparation for motherhood and reserves, and on her
financial and material resources. A
supportive husband / father can greatly reduce the stress in most of these
areas.
But
motherhood also has great rewards. For
many women it is the one thing that makes them complete—it is their vocation or
calling and they sense it in the deepest recesses of their spirit. These are they who are ‘fulfilling the
measure of their creation,’ the appointed stewardship of 'the better half' of all healthy couples.
Here is how
I understand motherhood in its most ideal light—the divine light as expressed
by scripture and by prophets of God.
The Bible indicates (Genesis 1:28) that
after God placed the first man and first woman on the earth He “blessed them”
(i.e., married them—see also Genesis 3:16-21 as pertaining to their being
married) and the first commandment he gave to this married couple on this earth
was to “multiply and replenish (fill) the earth.”
(To clarify
some troubling and inconsistent words in the King James translation of the
Bible in these passages it should be noted: In regard to the “sorrow” of
3:16-17, the Hebrew word is itsabon
meaning labor and work; and the “curse” was of the ground, not the couple. And
in verse 16 Adam’s “rule[ing] over Eve the word is translated from the
preposition bak meaning to rule with
and to preside as in the relationship between a king and his queen. The command
to “replenish” is better rendered ‘to fill’ as in vs. 22 of Chapter 1. )
After being
sent out of the Garden of Eden they were instructed to and continued to labor
together and to fulfill the first commandment by bringing forth many children
(see Genesis 5: 4-5). Over the next
several hundred years (Adam died at age 930 years) Adam and Eve and perhaps
other wives brought forth, nurtured and taught a numerous posterity.
Theirs was the
archetype for all healthy and responsible married couples, even (and
especially) for today. How our society
would be strengthened if people viewed this greatest of all institutions—the
family—this way!
Consider these astute observations from three testators as they honor motherhood:
One of the greatest needs in the world today is intelligent,
conscientious motherhood . . . .
Motherhood is the greatest potential influence either for good or ill in
human life.
The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True
motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions.
She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence
millions, deserves the admiration . . .
of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons
and daughters, whose immortal souls will exert an influence throughout the ages
long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed
or have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the
choicest blessings of God.
No nobler work in this world can be performed by any mother
than to rear and love the children with whom God has blessed her. That is her
duty.
David O. McKay
When the marriage bond is secure, a
wife stands at the center of moral gravity for her family’s universe, holding
[first her children, and always] her husband close with her gravitational pull.
Bruce C. Hafen
All that I am or hope to be I owe to
my angel mother.
Abraham
Lincoln
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