We honour our Mother’s this Mothering Sunday, the biological, adoptive mothers and the mothering influencers.
“Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind”
A Mother's heart, a Mother's faith, and a Mother's steadfast love were fashioned by the Angels and sent from God above.
Sacred Text
Into the world. John 16:21
A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born
“My mother was my first country, The first place I ever lived”
Hagar
Purchased in Egypt, she served as a maid to Abraham’s childless wife, Sarah, who gave her to Abraham to conceive an heir. When Hagar became pregnant, her meek manner changed to arrogance; with Abraham’s reluctant permission, Sarah treated her so harshly that she fled into the wilderness. There, by a spring of water, she was found by an angel of the Lord, who told her to return home and promised her that she would have many descendants through a son, Ishmael; Hagar returned home to bear her child.
About 14 years after the birth of Ishmael, Issac, Abraham’s son with whom God had promised was born to Sarah. One day Sarah saw Isaac and Ishmael playing together and, fearing that Ishmael would also become an heir, sent the son and mother into the desert. There God sustained them and was with Ishmael until he grew up.
“The first emotional comfort, touching and being touched by our mother, remains the ultimate memory of selfless love, which stays with us life long.”
Poem: Mother by Nikita Gill
The water of her womb, your first home
The body she pulled apart to welcome you to the world.
The spirit in you she helped grow with all she knew.
The heart that she gave you when yours fell apart.
You are her soft miracle.
So she gave you her eyes to see the best in the worst.
You carry your mother in your eyes.
Make her proud of all she watches you do.
M - O - T - H - E - R BY Howard Johnson
“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold,
“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
“R” means right, and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell “MOTHER,”
A word that means the world to me.
Universal Mom Sayings
These familiar saying have somehow been handed down from mother to daughter right through the ages. How many of these did you grow up with?
Who do you think you are?
Ask your father (closely followed by “Ask your Mother”)
Bored! How can you be bored? I was never bored at your age.
I’ll treat you like an adult when you start acting like an adult!
Look at me when I’m talking to you.
Don’t you roll your eyes at me!
Don’t pick it, it’ll get infected.
I don’t care if “insert child’s name here” Mum said yes.
You’ll put your eye out with that thing!
I’m going to give you to the count to three.
Don’t put that thing in your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been.
Wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident and have to go to hospital.
Don’t cross your eyes like that, one day they’ll freeze that way
I don’t care who started it, I’ll finish it!
Don’t EVER let me catch you doing that again!
Why? Because I SAID SO, that’s why!?!
If such and such jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?
If I catch you doing that one more time, I’ll…
Your father is going to hear about THIS when he gets home!
If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
How many times do I have to tell you, don’t throw things in the house!
Do you think your clothes are going to pick themselves up?
“I don’t know” is NOT an answer!
I know it’s not fair. Life isn’t fair.
Story: Open house
We lived in the Bronx, all seven of us kids and my single mom. It was mid-January and a huge snowstorm hit. The snow was so thick, the highways came to a complete stop. We lived a half of a block from the highway. The darkness of night was approaching. There were several cars stuck with people and their families and or pets inside.
Mom stood up and said to my brother “I will open my house to the stranded people on the highway.” She said “please go to them and invite them to our house.” We had thirteen families come. Our living room was covered in sleeping bags, blankets and pillows. In the morning, we had three pots of coffee, one huge pot of hot chocolate, bacon, eggs and warm French bread. Everyone showed such gratitude. Mom’s act of kindness and humanity was so profound to me. She showed us all the selflessness of helping others. —Submitted by Diana Allen Castaic, California. Try not to drool over some of Mom’s all-time best recipes.
Science of Mind Reading
BODY MEDITATION
Please click here to be taken to the Body Meditation’s page.
MOVEMENT PRAYER
Please click here to be taken to my Movement Prayer’s page.
SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER
Please click here to be taken to Prayers’ page
Mother's Day Prayer: God our Mother
Loving God, we give thanks today for mothers!
Thank you for mothers who gave birth to us,
and women who have treated us as their own children.
You teach us how to be good mothers,
cherishing and protecting the children among us.
Help us mother lovingly, fairly, wisely and with great joy.
Help us raise our children to be the people they are born to be.
We need your comfort here today, God,
because some are missing mothers, some are missing children,
some are parted by distance or death.
Comfort those who have given up their child for adoption,
or who chose not to give birth, and had an abortion.
Comfort those who longed to be biological mothers, and could not.
We pray for those here whose mothers have disappointed them;
we ask for grace in relationships where there is pain and bitterness,
for healing in relationships where there is abuse and violence.
Let our community be a space where people can feel mothered,
their gifts and talents appreciated and nurtured.
Finally, we pray today for mothers around the world;
mothers who cannot feed their children,
mothers who are homeless or without a homeland;
mothers who must teach their children about the dangers of bombs and bullets.
Help us create a world where mothers can raise their children in peace and plenty.
God of mothers, who created mothers, who came as a child and had a mother,
God our Mother, loving us with a sweeter and deeper love than we have ever known,
hear our prayer this day, Amen.
Rumination
We are born of love. Love is our mother. Rumi
Women’s History
Beulah Louise Henry (1887-1973), an American innovator nicknamed “Lady Edison" for the many devices she invented to make daily life a bit simpler and easier. Her wide range of inventions included a hair curler, the first bobbin-free sewing machine, a tool that allowed users to create multiple copies of a document on a typewriter without the use of carbon paper, a vacuum ice cream freezer, and a new method for stuffing dolls, among many others. If she could imagine it, she would create it. Over the course of her life, Beulah received almost 50 patents and is credited with around 110 total inventions.
Benediction
A Prayer of Thanksgiving for Mothering Sunday
For the mothering of mothers
and the mothering of fathers
for the mothering of others:
Mother God,
we give you thanks.
For those who act as midwife to our hopes,
for those who nurse us through our pain,
for those who nurture, strengthen and guide us:
Mother God,
we give you thanks.
For those who gently push us from the nest,
for those who welcome us home,
for those who become our family,
Mother God,
we give you thanks.
Song
Mother by Sugarland.