Matthew 15: 21-28 - "When Jesus left there, he withdrew to the area of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely tormented by a demon.” Jesus did not say a word to her. His disciples approached him and urged him, “Send her away because she’s crying out after us.” He replied, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came, knelt before him, and said, “Lord, help me!” He answered, “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus replied to her, “Woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want.” And from that moment her daughter was healed."
The first Mother’s Day was celebrated 100 years ago in West Virginia in 1912.
A familiar mother’s day poem written in the early 1900’s is:
M is for the Many 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.
God created families and gave mothers a unique place in that unit. They can love, give of themselves, cook, clean, wash clothes, put Band-Aids on scrapes … be the first one up in the morning or the last one down at night. They juggle a lot of things including raising children, working at jobs, managing a home, and sometimes finding time for themselves.
Today we are thinking about 7 Great Marks of a Mother as shown by this mother in Matthew 15.
- MOTHERS OVERCOME ALL GREAT BARRIERS (VERSE 22)
- MOTHERS ARE EMPOWERED BY GREAT LOVE
- MOTHERS ARE ARMED WITH GREAT DETERMINATION (VERSE 23, 24)
- MOTHERS KNOW THE POWER OF GREAT PRAYER (VERSE 25)
- MOTHERS ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR OWN GREAT SPIRITUAL NEED (VERSE 27)
- MOTHERS TRIUMPH BECAUSE OF GREAT FAITH (VERSE 28)
- MOTHERS DON’T NEED A NAME TO BE A GREAT MOTHERS
I asked God, Lord why you did not even reveal the name of this great woman of faith. Isn’t it unfair for her? Then God spoke to my heart....
I did it so that whenever you are reading this story, you can put the name of your own mother on her behalf...
Then God reminded me all the sacrifice of my own mother so that I become what I am today....
Mothers make up a crucial part of our lives. It is so important to give our love to these dedicated women in our lives and don’t take them for granted.
1 John 3: 18 – “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
Prayer: Father, today I stop and thank You for my mother. She has meant so much to me. She loved me, trained me, corrected me, and set the stage for what I would become. I also thank You for my wife - she is such a great mother to our three daughters and our four grandchildren. Without mothers, our world would be missing so much. Thank You for creating mothers. Amen.
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