Guess the topic should be Mother’s Day, or at least the day-after. Not any organized thoughts, just some jumbled ones that floated through my mind. First of all, I was asked what gifts I give on Mother’s Day to my wife. I was asked if I gave her flowers, and I said “No”, and they were surprised. I normally don’t give Annie gifts on Mother’s Day and you’ll need to ask her why, and it’s not because she is not my mother.
However, on the other hand there is so much more than giving her gifts on Mother’s Day. I should save the following for a Saturday Coffee Perc, but thought it should be thrown in here. I might even use it for today’s “Echo”.
“It had become a place I could not leave alone, nor my quiet talks with her, nor the good coffee in the candlelight.”
–Louis L’Amour
In fact last night, we sat, had coffee, but it wasn’t in the candlelight, just the lamplight. I cannot leave this place alone, for it is the Mother who makes a home. Dad provides the necessities and the protection, but it is the Mother who makes it a home by nurturing it. The warmth comes from her. She has the responsibility of being the one primarily responsible for personality development. She is the one who prepares their breakfast and then sends the children off to school, and prays for them while they are there. She is the one who is at home, waiting for them, and she probably has made cookies or pie, or something for them so they can have a snack when they come home.
One other thought along this line is from one of my devotions last week. It was about the wife of noble character. She is the husband’s crown. She seeks her husband’s honor, not her own. In that she is showing her children how to honor others. The wife of noble character is diligent and not sloppy in household administration. She is a good steward and that includes the nurturing of her children. A wife of noble character also has above all else and interest in the things of God.
Another thought flitted through my gray matter. I found out a few years ago that I actually came from a dysfunctional family. I didn’t know it at the time, but all the experts and the books say that I’m a messed up person because of the way I was raised. It caught my attention and I sat down, with a cup of coffee, and pondered it some. Not much, for I looked at my upbringing and said those so-called experts didn’t know what they were talking about. I have written it here before, but I really had three moms. I had my Mom, my Grandma, and my Aunt Bern. I had three distinct and important people taking time to nurture me. I know my Mom, regretted my staying at Grandma’s, especially in her last years, but she didn’t understand the plan of God. If that situation had not occurred it is very doubtful that I would be a Christian today. So I was fortunate in that and also that I had three moms to love me.
Three moms, a loving wife of noble character, and two daughters that are now following their mother with their example in raising their children. What more could a guy ask for?
Ira Paine
“A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.” –Proverbs 12:4