Mother's Day DATE

I wonder if Louise Johnson, who set the date for Armed Forces Day, made a mistake when she placed it six days after Mother's Day.  After all, they had to have realized that Mother's Day was already on the calendar.

According to WIKIPEDIA: 

The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in Grafton, West Virginia. She then began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States.  As a woman who was also defined by her faith, she was very active within the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church community. It was during one of her mother's Sunday school lessons that Anna Jarvis allegedly found her inspiration for Mother’s Day, as mother closed the lesson with a prayer, stating,

I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.

According to the US Department of Defense (DOD):

 

On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days.

In a speech announcing the formation of the day, President Truman "praised the work of the military services at home and across the seas" and said, "it is vital to the security of the nation and to the establishment of a desirable peace."

In an excerpt from the Presidential Proclamation of Feb. 27, 1950, Mr. Truman stated: "Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 20, 1950, marks the first combined demonstration by America's defense team of its progress, under the National Security Act, towards the goal of readiness for any eventuality. It is the first parade of preparedness by the unified forces of our land, sea, and air defense".

"What's the problem with the date?" you have every right to ask. And I shall answer:

-What child or father is not served well by the strength of the good mother's own arms, hands, and elbow grease?

-What good mother is not vital to the security of the nation which BEGINS in the security of the home?

-What good mother must not be ever vigilant, fully ready for any eventuality, from scuffed knees to broken bones, from sibling fights to all out familial warfare?

-What good mother is not the model of appropriate preparedness for the vicissitudes (like that word? It means problems. Using it makes me look smart, don't you think?  :)  ) of life?

-And what godly mother does not choose at all times to be prepared for war so that peace may reign in her home?

   -Luke 10:5 Whenever you enter a home say "Peace be to this home".

   -Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

So you see?  How much more efficient it would have been if President Truman and Louis Johnson had chosen to double down on Mother's Day for the date of Armed Forces Day?  Mother's would have still received flowers, and also a parade in their honor. With TANKS!

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You had to have noticed in the brief essay above that when I gave my reasons for a fictionally combined holiday I spoke of GOOD, and GODLY, mothers.  Not just all moms.  That was not a mistake. It was, and is, intentional.  While Anna Jarvis was thinking of her own mother's love for her family (13 kids) when she created the first holiday, many of us have birth mothers we not only have a hard time loving because they chose to not show us love, or we may never even know who they are.

So it's Mother's Day, 2014.  What do those of us in these categories do with the day?  Try to ignore it?  Good luck, thanks to sermons in most church's and greeting cards in every store.  Oh, and SPECIAL BUFFETS in every restaurant.  What do the mothers of America demand for their special menu do you think?

Here's what I suggest: 

If you can't identify your mother, or cannot thank her for a job she never did, consider blessing with your love, cards, presence, the woman, or MAN, who was YOUR good and godly mom.  Maybe a neighbor you grew up living next to.  Maybe a grandparent or aunt who mothered you when mother would or could not. Maybe the dad who covered both jobs for you.

And if you have been blessed with multiple mom's (often called by the youth of Hope Church Mom 1, 2, 3 etc.) blow your life savings and take them all out to dinner this Sunday! Or at least, get each of them a card.

Happy Mother's Day!

And Dear Good and Godly Mother's, thank you all for being forearmed, and well prepared, for the appropriate defense of our homes!

-Pastor Ken