Thoughts about Mothers Day

Mothers Day when I was a kid was always gloriously sunny and warm with birds singing and flowers all abloom.  All the mom's stood to get their flower or other gift during sacrament meeting.  I'd see them in the hall smiling at their flower saying how they didn't like all the fuss of mothers day and some even said they hated it but I could tell they liked the flowers.  I was always curious about that.

When I became a mom and stood to get my flower for the first time I remember feeling proud and thrilled at the new little baby that allowed me to stand with this new title and I did feel a little embarrassed about all the fuss too.  I heard ladies in the hall saying the very same things I heard ladies say when I was little.  Some felt guilty.  That's what women are good at.  We have the ideal woman in our minds eye and realize how far we fall short of it.  All the talks and poems and songs make us feel a little guilty as we realize that we still have some improvements to do.  

Some moms didn't like mothers day at all.  It made them sad because they missed their mom's who had passed on and others because they felt cheated as a kid because they had a bad mom.  Some women were sad because they never were able to be a mom and even though the gospel teaches us that this blessing will not be denied to any faithful daughter of God and that this life is just a mere pin dot of time on the long time line of eternity, the sadness is still real.

Moms do a lot!  We all know what they do. It can be said in one word.  Everything!  Moms get pulled in so many directions, they don't even know what direction they're going sometimes.  So if you think your mom seems a little crazy mixed up in the head sometimes, it's because she is -  sometimes - from being tossed around and half drowned on a sea of life that seems unending - sometimes.

Moms seem to like to worry too much.  Sometimes they are a basket case. They cry when they're happy, they cry when they're sad.  Look at your Mom's face to see if she is happy.  I loved Mom to be happy.  I try to remember that now.  Every child deserves a happy mom.  Moms worry because they love so much.  They feel their children's pain.  Children don't always know that their mom cries for them.  Women feel the pain of their friends.  They want to fix everything.  They plead with the Lord to take the pain away from those they love.  Moms would gladly bare the pain for loved ones if the Lord would allow it, but He in His greater & infinite wisdom knows the greater purposes behind suffering that are beyond our understanding.  So suffer they do.  They even weep for strangers whose sad stories are told in the news and they pray for the Lord to hurry and come and take away all the bad guys and wipe the tears from those who mourn.  Then there will be true joy,  It is hard to feel the full joy of joy when others around you are sorrowing.

One of my favorite Mother's day was in 1999 in the Lahaina Hawaii ward on Maui.  Br. Mathius was playing the prelude music and then came down and sat by us. Someone else in the ward played congregational hymns and someone else played postlude music.  The chorister noticed Chris because she could hear him sing.  She actually called upon Chris to sing a solo on verse two of the closing hymn!  The Bishop then took his lei off and gave it to Chris to give to me!  An old Hawaiian man with a thick pigeon accent gave the most sweet sincere closing prayer.  He prayed to Heavenly Father and said "On behalf of this congregation we ask thee to send our love to our mother in heaven and to send to her a very happy mothers day from all of us."