Growing up between Fairmont and Grafton, West Virginia, I learned very quickly about Mother’s Day. The elementary school I went to was Anna Jarvis elementary school, in Grafton, WV named after Anna Jarvis the founder of Mother’s Day, who once lived in Grafton.
The story goes that Anna was so impressed by a prayer she had heard her own mother pray on behalf of the mothers who had lost sons in the Civil War she decided to establish a day in her honor. It was the day of her mother’s death, the second Sunday of May.
What started out as a local observance in 1908 soon spread to other cities and states. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson designated the second Sunday of May as a day for displaying the American Flag and for the public expression of love and reverence for mothers of the country. Anna Jarvis also helped establish the wearing of a carnation on Mother’s Day. (Information from https://www.internationalmothersdayshrine.org).
Anna Jarvis highlighted the importance of mothers, but before she ever was born the Bible had already been teaching the honor and value of mothers. Exodus 20:12 commands, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may belong in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” Then Proverbs 1:8 teaches, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,” Also, let us not forget the many godly examples of mothers in Scripture such as Sarah, Jochebed, Naomi, Ruth, Hannah, Mary, Lois, and Eunice, to just name a few.
God designed motherhood to be an essential part of the family. Even those who are not in the Bible recognized a mother’s value. Abraham Lincoln said, “All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my mother.” Napoleon stated, “The destiny of the child is the work of the mother.” Then Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “Even He that died for us upon the cross, in the last hour, in the unutterable agony of death, was mindful of His mother as if to teach us that this holy love should be our last worldly thought, the last point of earth from which the soul should take its flight for heaven.”
Regardless of the changing world’s view about motherhood, the Bible still teaches us to honor our mothers and to value their essential place in the family. May we give “honor to whom honor is due” (Rom. 13:17). Today and every day may we show our grandmothers, mothers, and the mother of our children the appreciation and gratitude they deserve.
Happy Mother’s Day
Mark T. Tonkery