Why Celebrate Mothers?

Why do we celebrate mothers? Should we celebrate all women on Mother’s Day? When God created women and men, He created us in his image. Male and female He created us. So from that aspect, yes we value women as much as we value men. We value mothers and women without children equally. We should never devalue what God has called invaluable. Yet just as we don’t celebrate men on Mother’s Day, we don’t celebrate all women. There are women without any biological children who play the role of a good mother for others. These spiritual mothers are every bit as worthy of celebrating as much as any biological mother.

We celebrate mothers, because of what a good mother is. A good mother encourages her children in doing what is right and rebukes them for doing what is wrong. A good mother is loving. She is self-sacrificing, and she is self-sacrificing because she loves. Because she loves, she does what’s in the best interest of her children and does not follow her own selfish desires. She ministers to a child in the middle of the night when they’re feverish… when they cough… when they’re in pain… and she always seems to find that one-extra-thing that helps her children feel loved.

A good mother often sets aside her own dreams or postpones them because she knows she has a higher priority. She may have a full-time career or be a full-time homemaker, but in either case she’s a full-time mother, which is her priority. A good mother is worthy of so much respect! Out of love, a good mother pushes herself to do more than she ever thought she was capable of doing, setting an example that her daughters want to follow and modeling the type of person that her sons should marry.

A good mother is not perfect and doesn’t always feel like being a “good” mother. It’s not her actions or her feelings that make her good, but the sum of her decisions over the course of a lifetime that reflects a goodness which demands celebration. Despite her best efforts, her children may not recognize her love or follow her example. Yet we don’t celebrate mothers because of the outcome of their efforts; Adam and Eve had the perfect parent and still went astray. Children will go their own way, and still they will always be loved, cherished by the good mother. We celebrate the faithfulness of the good mother, who is so important to each of us individually and as a society.

I am fortunate that I can
celebrate my mom, my wife, and my daughter as good mothers. I am further blessed to celebrate other good mothers in my life: my mother-in-law, sister-in-laws, nieces, and friends. I thank them for their examples, their service and their love. I celebrate the love that has been poured out, which will continue to overflow into the lives of their children, their children’s children and a world that has mostly forgotten love.

It’s not what you do that makes you a good a mother, but who you are defines what you do. We celebrate you!

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