In Christian preaching, a mother symbolizes nurturing love, sacrifice, and spiritual guidance, reflecting God's care for His children. Illustrations often depict her as a steadfast, sacrificial figure whose hands and heart shape faith and character, echoing themes of covenant and unconditional love (Proverbs 31:25-28, 2 Timothy 1:5). These images convey both the tender and disciplined aspects of motherhood in the Christian life.
Indian Christian evangelist Sadhu Sundar Singh was once told in England that his mother, a saintly Sikh, was in hell because she had not been a Christian. Sadhu's eyes flashed with indignation.
"If I cannot find my mother in heaven, I will ask God to send me
down to hell so that I may be with her there."
Joel Steinberg's abuse of lover, Hedda Nussbaum, and murder of adopted daughter Lisa. Six was 6 when she was beaten to death. Raised an outcry on child abuse. Home was full of drug abuse and systematic beatings.
Steinberg came to Hedda holding Lisa in his arms, limp. "What happened?" "What's the difference what happened? This is your child. Hasn't this gone far enough?" He was referring to Lisa's habit of staring at him. "I knocked her down and she didn't want to get up again. This staring business had gotten to be too much." Steinberg left for lunch. For three hours Lisa lay motionless on the floor, water and undigested food oozing from her mouth. Hedda took her pulse, washed her underwear. She did not call for help, believing Steinberg had healing powers. Lisa died three days later. She could have been saved with prompt help.
(Statistics and personal stories of abuse nationwide on page 58. 100 kids killed in NYC alone each year. 2.1 million reported cases of abuse, 138,000 were sexual in 1986. 1,200 are battered to death each year. Parents who were abused as children are six times more likely to abuse their own children. At least 40% of all abuse case involve alcohol or drugs.)
Nussbaum's abuse is detailed in article. Once he ruptured her spleen, which had to be removed. He broke her knee, her ribs, damaged her vocal cords, hit her with a broomstick, handcuffed her to a chinning bar, beat her with a metal bar, knocked out teeth, was forced to take cold baths. Was also psychologically abused. Because of him she lost her job as an editor of children's books. (He was a criminal lawyer.) He cut her completely off from other people. She attempted to run away but changed her mind each time.
Others noticed the abuse and reported it. It was not followed-up. A list of signs of child abuse is given, as well as where to turn to report suspected abuse. Nussbaum's credibility may be challenged since she is ill psychologically.
Less than a year after my wife's funeral I was confronted with the most terrible realities of being a widower with five children.
Notes from school.
Field trip permission slips, PTA election ballots, Troll Book order forms, sports sign-ups, medical forms, and innumerable academic progress reports - an onslaught of paperwork courtesy of the educational bureaucracy.
This "literature" has to be read and signed, or placed at the bottom of the birdcage. Regardless of its destination it must be dealt with on a daily basis.
One day, eight-year-old Rachel was helping me complete five (count 'em, five) emergency treatment forms for school. She would fill in the generic information (name, address, phone number), and I would add the rest (insurance numbers, doctor's name, date, and signature). After signing the forms, I checked them for accuracy. It was then that I noticed on each card, in the slot beside Mother's Business Phone, Rachel had written "1-800-HEAVEN."
________________
Rob Loughran from Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff, copyright 1999 Canfield and Hansen
Gideons placed 50,000 Testaments on ships in Pacific fleet before the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack it was found that many of the dead sailors had been reading their Testaments, and some had signed their name on the blank line for salvation.
A nurse who had not communicated with her sailor son for two years came across him in the morgue. His personal effects contained a water-logged Testament, unreadable, but with his name signed on the line. She asked a chaplain for a Testament of her own (she had been non-religious) and she read it thoroughly. She then signed her name below that of her son's.
A three-year-old girl told her mother she learned that Jesus will come to live in the heart of those who invite him. That is a difficult concept for a little girl to grasp. The mother was sitting on the couch and her three-year-old came over and put her ear to her mother's chest.
"What are you doing?" asked the mother. "I'm listening for Jesus in your heart," replied the child. The mother let the little girl listen for a few seconds and then asked, "Well, what do you hear?" "He's there," replied the little girl, "and it sounds to me like he's making coffee."
Donald Grey Barnhouse was driving his children to the funeral of their mother. A semi-tractor trailer truck crossed in front of them at an intersection, momentarily casting a shadow on the car, and Barnhouse asked his children, “Would you rather be stuck by the semi or the shadow?”
“The shadow, of course,” they replied.
“That’s what has happened to us,” said Barnhouse.
“Mother’s dying is only the shadow of death. The lost sinner is struck by the semi of death.”
This following is a true story of a homeless child at New York's Covenant House for runaway kids, told by Sister Mary Rose. [It is adapted from the first person to the third.]
She came to Covenant House's front door Tuesday morning, dressed in dirty rags, holding a little aluminum paint can in her arms. From the second she stepped inside the shelter, she mystified the staff. Whatever she did, wherever she went, the paint can never left her hands. When Kathy sat in the crisis shelter, the can sat in her arms. She took the can with her to the cafeteria that first morning she ate, and to bed with her that first night she slept. When she stepped into the shower, the can was only a few feet away. When the tiny homeless girl dressed, the can rested alongside her feet.
"I'm sorry, this is mine," she told the counselors, whenever they asked her about it. "This can belongs to me." "Do you want to tell me what's in it, Kathy?" Sister Rose asked her. "Um, not today," she said, "not today."
When Kathy was sad, or angry or hurt -- which happened a lot -- she took her paint can to a quiet dorm room on the 3rd floor. Many times on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, Sister Rose passed by her room, and watched her rock gently back and forth, the can in her arms. Sometimes she'd talk to the paint can in low whispers.
Sister Rose had been around troubled kids all her life (over 41,000 homeless kids will come to the shelters this year!) She was used to seeing them carry stuffed animals (some of the roughest, toughest kids at Covenant House have a stuffed animal). Every kid has something -- needs something -- to hold. But a paint can? Sister Rose could feel alarm bells ringing in her head. Early one morning, she decided to "accidentally" run into the child again. "Would you like to join me for breakfast?" the Sister said. "That would be great," Kathy said. For a few minutes they sat in the corner of the cafeteria, talking quietly over the din of 150 ravenous homeless kids. Then the nun took a deep breath, and plunged into it....
"Kathy, that's a really nice can. What's in it?" For a long time, Kathy didn't answer. She rocked back and forth, her hair swaying across her shoulders. Then she looked over at Sister Rose, tears in her eyes.
"It's my mother," she said.
"Oh," Sister Rose said. "What do you mean, it's your mother?" "It's my mother's ashes," she said. "I went and got them from the funeral home. See, I even asked them to put a label right her on the side. It has her name on it." Kathy held the can up before Sister Mary's eyes. A little label on the side chronicled all that remained of her mother: date of birth, date of death, name. That was it. Then Kathy pulled the can close, and hugged it.
"I never really knew my mother, Sister," Kathy told Rose. "I mean, she threw me in the garbage two days after I was born." (They checked out Kathy's story. Sure enough the year Kathy was born, the New York newspapers ran a story, saying that police had found a little infant girl in a dumpster ... and yes, it was two days after Kathy was born.)
"I ended up living in a lot of foster homes, mad at my mother," Kathy said. "But then, I decided I was going to try to find her. I got lucky -- someone knew where she was living. I went to her house. She wasn't there, Sister. My mother was in the hospital. She had AIDS. She was dying. I went to the hospital, and I got to meet her the day before she died. My mother told me she loved me, Sister," Kathy said crying. "She told me she loved me." (They double-checked Kathy's story ... every word of it was true.)
Sister Rose reached out and hugged Kathy, and she cried in her arms for a long, long time. It was tough getting her arms around her, because she just wouldn't put the paint can down. But Kathy didn't seem to mind. Sister Rose certainly didn't....
She saw Kathy again, a few days later, eating dinner in the cafeteria. Kathy made a point to come up and say hi. Sister Rose made a point to give her an extra hug.
#3417
*
Susannah Wesley (1669-1742) was a London pastor's wife and the mother of nineteen children, including hymn writer Charles Wesley and John Wesley, evangelist and founder of Methodism. In his journal, John Wesley recorded his mother's rules for the family [paraphrased]:
1. Fear of punishment often leads children into lying, till they get
accustomed to it and cannot stop. To prevent this, my mother made a rule
that whenever someone did something wrong, if they would sincerely
confess it, and promise to change their behavior, they would not be
punished.
2. No sinful action, such as lying, stealing, playing in church, being
disobedient, fighting, etc., would ever go unpunished.
3. No child should be punished twice for the same error, and if they change
their behavior the error should never be mentioned again.
4. Every act of obedience, especially when it went against their nature,
should always be complimented, and frequently rewarded.
5. If any child was obedient or tried to please the parents, even if it
wasn't done that well, the obedience was kindly accepted and the child
encouraged to do even better in the future.
6. The property of the children would be respected, even the smallest object,
and not taken away from them unless they agreed.
7. Promises should be strictly kept. Once a gift is given it could not be
taken back, unless it was a conditional gift and the agreement it was
based on was violated.
From "The Heart of John Wesley's Journal"
===================================
Below is a version found on the Internet, May 27, 1998:
Over 200 years ago a lady named Suzanna Wesley reared 19 children. She was devoted to the task and had 16 rules. They are as follows:
(1) Eating between meals not allowed.
(2) As children, they are to be in bed by 8 PM.
(3) They are required to take medicine without complaining.
(4) Subdued self-will in a child working together with God to save the
child's Soul.
(5) Teach a child to pray as soon as he can speak.
(6) Require all to be still during Family Worship.
(7) Give them nothing they cry for, and only that which they ask for
politely.
(8) To prevent lying, punish no fault which is first confessed and repented.
(9) Never allow a sinful at to go unpunished.
(10) Never punish a child twice for a single offense.
(11) Commend and reward good behavior.
(12) Any attempt to please, even if poorly performed should be commended
(13) Preserve property rights, even in smallest matters.
(14) Strictly observe all promises.
(15) Require no daughter to work before she can read well.
(16) Teach children to fear the Lord.
Jerry Evers relived a nightmare every time he turned on his television in January and saw the story that stunned a nation and topped all the news reports -- the drowning of two children by their own mother.
The story of Susan Smith in South Carolina was frighteningly similar to a tragedy that has dominated his own life since New Year's Day 1980 when Evers' wife murdered their three children by drowning.
As the Smith story unfolded, Evers says he didn't see Susan Smith in the news reports; he saw his first wife. He didn't see the Smith children; he saw his own. The pictures of grief and shock were only too familiar to him and his family.
As painful as it was to watch, it provided a way for him to put to rest demons that had haunted him for years. Since the days when the death of his own children dominated the news in central Florida, he has agonized over the question that everyone seems to have asked since Susan Smith was arrested: How could a mother murder her own children?
No one, Evers says bluntly, will ever be able to answer that question. As expected, he has been pursued by the media and offered payment to tell his story. But he chose carefully the outlet for sharing his story saying, "It is one of God's grace and love and -- at last -- forgiveness." He chose to tell his story through an article in the November 1995 issue of "Home Life," a magazine for parents published by the Baptist Sunday School Board.
In 1979 Jerry and Dianne Evers were the young parents of three daughters -- four-year-old twins Sherrie and Carrie and two-year-old Mandy. Living in a fishing camp in one side of a duplex shared with her parents, they struggled, as they had since they were married when he was 17 and she was 16.
Mental health problems had plagued Dianne since 1973. When they resurfaced, she made weekly visits to a doctor in Orlando. However, she stopped the sessions at a time when she was having delusions of being the Virgin Mary and hearing voices she said were telling her what to do.
In October, when his wife's behavior became blatantly bizarre and erratic, Jerry pleaded with doctors to commit her to a state hospital, but they determined she should not be institutionalized and would be better off at home.
On New Year's Day, after telling relatives she was going to bathe the children, Dianne methodically drowned them one by one in a tub of water. Then she walked into the living room and told her uncle: "Call the sheriff. I've drowned the three babies. They're better off now because they're in heaven." While her uncle fought in vain to revive the children, another relative struggled to restrain Dianne, who kept trying to put them back in the water.
Evers remembers asking his former wife, "Why, why, why?" did she do it.
Her response was irrational. "She told me because I couldn't afford to take care of them and they were going through pure hell."
A neighbor at the fishing camp remembers Evers as a hard-working $192-a-week truck driver and a doting father who took the kids everywhere. Still, for many years, Dianne's words haunted him.
"She said she did it out of hatred for me," he says tearfully, in a barely audible voice.
Dianne was sent to the Florida state mental hospital in Chattahoochee where she remained under evaluation for almost a year until December 1980, when she was declared competent to stand trial.
In the February 1981 trial, she confessed her guilt and entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. After a three-hour nonjury trial, the judge found her innocent and ordered she be returned to the hospital in Chattahoochee, where she has spent the last 14 years. She has tried to commit suicide at least four times, including one case when she asked a fellow inmate to drown her.
After the trial, Evers drifted, feeling his life had no meaning. He went from job to job. Dianne divorced him in 1982, and he enrolled in Trinity Baptist College in Jacksonville, Fla.
"That," says the 38-year-old Evers who accepted Christ as his Savior at age 22, "was my salvation."
At Trinity, he found grace but not peace. There were still too many unanswered questions. Evers agonized almost daily, trying to bring meaning to the tragedy: Why? Why me? and Could I have done more to prevent what happened?
He served on church staffs for two years and gave his testimony everywhere. Still, he sought forgiveness, but it eluded him; he couldn't forgive his wife and he couldn't let go of the blame and forgive himself. He wandered, still numbed, just existing.
Evers admits he lived in a sort of limbo until October 1987, when he met Dorrie Jacobs at a gospel concert for single adults in Baxley, Ga.
"It was love at first sight for both of us," Evers says with a smile. They were married two months later. Then came Jessica, now 6; Jerry Jr. "Bubba", 4; and Rebecca, 2.
"We've been happy ever since," Evers says, beaming while he describes life with his new family. "People ask me how I got to where I am from where I was, and I tell them I couldn't. It was God's grace. Only God's grace.
"God has blessed me so much, and all I have to do to know how blessed I am is to look around me at Dorrie and my kids."
But looking at his beautiful children can also strike fear in Evers, because of their strong resemblance to the children he lost.
"I was fearful for my new family for a long time, especially for my kids," says Evers. "The last time I talked with Dianne was at her trial in 1981, and she said then she would make me pay."
His former wife wrote a chilling letter to a Florida judge in 1989, asking to be released: "The court made a crucial mistake," she wrote. "I confess that I was not mentally ill before, during or after the offense." In the letter she also stated she knew she could not be retried because of the double jeopardy law.
In January 1992, after she was diagnosed as schizophrenic and housed in a Florida mental hospital for 12 years, a court ruled she could be moved to a halfway house. From there, she began petitioning regularly for her release.
"Can you believe that?" Jerry exclaimed, looking at the 1989 letter. "I was terrified for both myself and my family."
During the years he drifted, Evers was also angry at his wife, who confessed to the killings from the beginning, spent only two days in jail.
"It's wrong," he said tearfully. "She has to pay her debt."
The loss of his children took the heart out of Evers, and he felt it was his mission to help other abused children. He deplored the insanity plea and fought his wife's release when her hearings came up every six months. He founded Concerned Citizens' Foundation, a victims' rights group, and lobbied to have the insanity plea defense modified.
Eventually he began rebuilding his life through what he calls his "ministry in law enforcement." He has worked for police departments in Nicholls, Ricon and Vidalia, Ga., as well as several sheriff's departments. Since March, he has been the chief of police of the one-man force in Canon in northeast Georgia.
"Law enforcement is definitely a ministry I was called to," says Evers, whose life has finally come together so completely that he wears a chief's badge on his belt when he's speaking in churches, and he carries a Bible on the front seat of his squad car when he's on patrol.
His testimony to church and civic groups alike has always been filled with the beauty and comfort of God's grace. Yet he still could not forgive Dianne or himself. He worked hard to put the past behind and to turn the pain into something positive. But the fight became increasingly difficult, and Dianne's hearing in November lasted one hour longer than her trial in 1981.
"That's when I began asking God to deliver me," says Evers. "He had to."
"We each have to find it in our hearts to forgive because that's what the Bible teaches us. I've got such peace about me now; the burden has finally rolled away."
Then came the tragic drowning of two little boys in South Carolina.
Seeing the Smith case unfold, Evers realized he had been too traumatized in 1980 to feel anything. Watching the events in South Carolina on television was like being there and reliving the tragedy he had experienced but was too numb to feel. It was almost too painful to watch, but as he watched he began to feel healing and to forgive himself.
Then he made a conscious effort to forgive his ex-wife. God's grace, which had been so real and brought him through such a tragedy, flooded him.
"I am still for the death penalty. I believe if you take a life, your life is forfeited. I noticed David Smith made some statements that were almost identical to those I made. I can truly say I know what he means when he says his wife took something away from him that he will never get over. I feel especially sorry for David Smith, and I understand his writing the book he has been criticized for, because it's therapeutic. I've tried to make myself available to David if he needs me and wants to talk."
Today, Evers understands with certainty God's grace and his love and, now finally, his forgiveness.
The exact date this happened was Jan. 17, 1995. He remembers that even more clearly than he remembers New Year's Day 1980.
The act of forgiveness has not eradicated the painful memories, but it has freed him to move beyond the nightmare of 1980.
--------------------
Mich Livingston is a free-lance writer from Buford, Ga. This article was reprinted with permission from the November issue of Home Life magazine.
Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press
RNbp5C13mrjB5C13f5C20
Mother's letter to a university president:
Dear Sir,
My son has been accepted into your university and I am writing to
appeal to you personally that you give him personal oversight
when he arrives. I want you to make sure that he has a roommate
who never uses foul language, tells off-color jokes, never drinks
and never chases girls.
I am appealing to you personally because this is the first time
my son has ever left home with the exception of the four years he
spent in the Marine Corps.
For some time I have had a person provide me with a rose boutonniere to pin on the lapel of my suit every Sunday. Because I always got a flower on Sunday morning, I really did not think much of it. It was a nice gesture that I appreciated but it became routine. One Sunday, however, what I considered ordinary became very special.
As I was leaving the Sunday service a young man approached me. He walked right up to me and said, "Sir, what are you going to do with your flower?" At first I did not know what he was talking about, but then I understood. I said, "Do you mean this?" as I pointed to the rose pinned to my coat.
He said, "Yes sir. I would like it if you are just going to throw it away." At this point I smiled and gladly told him that he could have my flower, casually asking him what he was going to do with it. The little boy, who was probably less than 10 years old, looked up at me and said, "Sir, I'm going to give it to my granny. My mother and father got divorced last year. I was living with my mother, but when she married again, she wanted me to live with my father. I lived with him for a while, but he said I could not stay, so he sent me to live with my grandmother. She is so good to me. She cooks for me and takes care of me. She has been so good to me that I want to give that pretty flower to her for loving me."
When the little boy finished I could hardly speak. My eyes filled with tears and I knew I had been touched in the depths of my soul. I reached up and unpinned my flower. With the flower in my hand, I looked at the boy and said, "Son, that is the nicest thing I have ever heard, but you can't have this flower because it's not enough. If you'll look in front of the pulpit, you'll see a big bouquet of flowers. Different families buy them for the church each week. Please take those flowers to your granny because she deserves the very best."
If I hadn't been touched enough already, he made one last statement and I will always cherish it. He said, "What a wonderful day! I asked for one flower but got a beautiful bouquet."
=====================
By Pastor John R. Ramsey from A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1995 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
In 1921, Lewis Lawes became the warden at Sing Sing Prison. No prison was tougher than Sing Sing during that time. But when Warden Lawes retired some 20 years later, that prison had become a humanitarian institution. Those who studied the system said credit for the change belonged to Lawes. But when he was asked about the transformation, here's what he said, "I owe it all to my wonderful wife, Catherine, who is buried outside the prison walls."
Catherine Lawes was a young mother with three small children when her husband became the warden. Everybody warned her from the beginning that she should never set foot inside the prison walls, but that didn't stop Catherine! When the first prison basketball game was held, she went... walking into the gym with her three beautiful kids and she sat in the stands with the inmates.
Her attitude was: "My husband and I are going to take care of these men and I believe they will take care of me! I don't have to worry!"
She insisted on getting acquainted with them and their records. She discovered one convicted murderer was blind so she paid him a visit. Holding his hand in hers she said, "Do you read Braille?" "What's Braille?" he asked. Then she taught him how to read. Years later he would weep in love for her.
Later, Catherine found a deaf-mute in prison. She went to school to learn how to use sign language. Many said that Catherine Lawes was the body of Jesus that came alive again in Sing Sing from 1921 to 1937.
Then, she was killed in a car accident. The next morning Lewis Lawes didn't come to work, so the acting warden took his place. It seemed almost instantly that the prison knew something was wrong.
The following day, her body was resting in a casket in her home, three-quarters of a mile from the prison. As the acting warden took his early morning walk, he was shocked to see a large crowd of the toughest, hardest-looking criminals gathered like a herd of animals at the main gate. He came closer and noted tears of grief and sadness. He knew how much they loved Catherine. He turned and faced the men, "All right, men you can go. Just be sure and check in tonight!" Then he opened the gate and a parade of criminals walked, without a guard, the three-quarters of a mile to stand in line to pay their final respects to Catherine Lawes. And every one of them checked back in. Every one!
________
Tim Kimmel, from A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1997, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Hanoch McCarty & Meladee McCarty.
One day, while I was lying on a massage table in a dark, quiet room waiting for an appointment, a wave of longing swept over me. I checked to make sure I was awake and not dreaming, and I saw that I was as far removed from a dreamy state as one could possibly be. Each thought I had was like a drop of water disturbing a still pond, and I marveled at the peacefulness of each passing moment.
Suddenly my mother’s face appeared – my mother, as she had been before Alzheimer’s disease had stripped her of her mind, her humanity, and 50 pounds. Her magnificent silver hair crowned her sweet face. She was so real and so close I felt I could reach out and touch her. I even smelled the fragrance of Joy, her favorite perfume. She seemed to be waiting and did not speak.
I said, “Oh, Mother, I’m so sorry that you had to suffer with that horrible disease.”
She tipped her head slightly to one side, as though to acknowledge what I had said about her suffering. Then she smiled – a beautiful smile – and said very distinctly, “But all I remember is love.” And she disappeared.
I began to shiver in a room gone suddenly cold, and I knew in my bones that the love we give and receive is all that matters and is all that is remembered. Suffering disappears; love remains.
Her words are the most important I have ever heard, and that moment is forever engraved on my heart.
________
Bobbie Probstein, from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Patty Hansen
Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother," writes Erma Bombeck, "I will tell them:
• I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom, and
what time you will get home.
• I loved you enough to insist that you buy a bike with your own money, that
you could afford.
• I loved you enough to be silent and to let you discover on your own, that
your boyfriend was a creep.
• I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to
a drugstore to confess that you had stolen it.
• I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your
room; a job that would have taken me fifteen minutes.
• I loved you enough to say to you, "Yes, you can go with your friends to
Disney World on Mother's Day."
• I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears
in my eyes.
• I loved you enough not to make excuses for your lack of respect or bad
manners.
• I loved you enough to admit that I was wrong and ask for your forgiveness.
• I loved you enough to ignore what every other mother did or said.
• I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail.
• I loved you enough to let you assume responsibility for your own actions at
age 6, 10, or 16.
• I loved you enough to figure you would lie about the party being
chaperoned, but forgave you for it, after discovering that I was right.
• I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to
be.
• But most of all, I loved you enough to say "no" when you hated me for it.
That was the hardest, hardest part of all."
Tony Campolo, in his book, POWER OF ILLUSION he tells about his wife and how she stays at home. But sometimes she has to go to some parties of some important people and she said inevitable some woman will come up to her and this woman is obviously a lecturer, writer, and sociologist all in one and will ask Tony's wife, "My dear, what do you do?"
She says, "I am socializing two homosapeans in the dominant values of the Judeo Christian Tradition in order that they might be instruments in the transformation of the social order into the Teleologicly prescribed utopia inherent in the eschlon.
Then she says, "And what do you do?"
The other person's answer, "A lawyer," just wasn't that impressive.
________
[longer version at HolwickID #6457]
I had wandered into a small Indian shop in the foothills of the Sierras in Northern California and struck up a conversation with the Native American woman who owned the shop. My own Modoc Indian heritage and love of Indian jewelry prompted me to tell her of the pain I suffered when my mother's silver Navajo concho belt was stolen. My mother had worn it almost every day of her life. It has passed on to me when she had passed through the arch of life to the other side.
I remember as a small girl putting my arms around my mother's waist and feeling the warmth of her body through the silver platelets. Having her belt gave me great comfort after her death.
As I talked with the Indian woman, I could sense her empathy. But when I finished expressing my grief at having lost the belt, her message was not the one of sympathy I expected. What she gave me was a new beginning and an insight into my mother.
"Remember," she said, "the true gift you were given was things of the spirit. Don't ever cry over things that can't cry over you."
My mother is not a belt. My mother is reflected in the woman who now stands in her place - me. My true heritage is the talents and strengths that she left to me. I no longer cry over things that can't cry over me. I cherish the fortitude and the love a woman left to me.
======================
By Cheewa James from Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Diana von Welanetz Wentworth
*
There's nothing secular elites enjoy more than calling Christians "hypocrites." They delight in pointing fingers at Christians whose conduct doesn't quite measure up to what they profess to believe.
Well, recently the tables were turned when a well-known secularist was caught failing to live up to HIS beliefs -- and thank God for that.
Peter Singer is a professor of ethics at Princeton, and he's the quintessential moral utilitarian. Singer believes that an action's morality cannot be judged by any transcendent standard. Instead, he suggests we ask whether a particular action will increase the sum total of happiness in the world.
For example, as George Will commented about Singer, "Should one spend a sum to ease the suffering of a family member or send the same sum to ease the sufferings of 10 Sudanese?" Singer's answer would be to send the money to Sudan, because doing so would increase the world's total amount of happiness. He also argues for allowing parents to kill their handicapped newborns, and favors euthanasia for the sick and the elderly -- people who can no longer enjoy their lives and who create a burden on others.
But Singer's beliefs were put to the test when his own mother became sick with Alzheimer's. You will be relieved to know that, instead of starving his mother to death and thus increasing the world's supply of happiness, Singer is behaving hypocritically. He spends thousands of dollars providing his mother with nursing home care.
Singer sheepishly acknowledges the hypocrisy of his actions. "It's not the best use you could make of my money, that's true," he admits. But he then rationalizes his inconsistency: "It does provide employment for a number of people who find something worthwhile in what they're doing," he says.
Hogwash. A better explanation is that Peter Singer the son trumps Peter Singer the philosopher.
Christians should rejoice at Singer's inconsistency, and not only because taking care of his mother is the right thing to do. The case demonstrates how unworkable secular humanist ideas about human life really are.
It's one thing to engage in intellectual parlor games within the safe confines of the academy. In that setting, denying the sanctity of human life or the existence of moral absolutes has little, if any, impact on people's lives.
But in the real world, it means the difference between life and death. The last thing people like Singer want is for people to act in accordance with their principles when it affects someone they care about.
The truth of any worldview is authenticated by how well it depicts reality. By doing the right thing by his mother, Singer himself has demonstrated that his philosophy does not produce a rational and just society. He would be hard pressed to cite a single example of a healthy, vibrant society that believes that there isn't anything special about human life. As Singer himself demonstrates, this belief produces societies that no one would want to live in -- not even him.
In short, Singer's worldview flunks the reality test.
So if you come across someone who tells you there's nothing special about human life, ask him which Peter Singer they hope their kids emulate when they're old and frail: Peter Singer the avant garde philosopher, or Peter Singer the hypocrite.
The one who admits, "It is different when it's your mother."
___________________________
Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
*
When the will of Henry J. Heinz, wealthy distributor of the famous "57 Varieties" line, was read it was found to contain the following confession:
"Looking forward to the time when my earthly career will end, I desire to set forth at the very beginning of this will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I also desire to bear witness to the fact that throughout my life, in which there were unusual joys and sorrows, I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left me by my consecrated mother, a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I have attained."
(Tan's 7700 Illustrations)
Sandra Schmirler was that rarest of athletes whose celebrity actually transcended her sporting achievements. To be sure, there was no shortage of sporting glory in her short life. Three-time Canadian women's curling champion. Three-time world champion. Olympic gold medallist. All in the span of six seasons. "Schmirler the curler" they called her.
Schmirler was that quintessentially ordinary Canadian - a humble gal from Biggar, Saskatchewan, who never got rich off her game, and even at the height of her fame could be seen in the local Safeway pushing the shopping cart down the aisles with her two daughters. Her day job was supervisor at the local recreation centre. Her full-time job was wife and mom.
She and her team won the Canadian and world curling championships in 1993, 94 and 97. In 1998 they won the first Olympic gold medal in curling. But her glory was short-lived. One year after the gold medal victory, Sandra was diagnosed as having cancer of the esophagus. Five months after that, she died on March 2, 2000, at he age of 36. She left behind her husband and her two daughters, aged 2 and nine months.
Along with being a fierce competitor who brought women's curling to a new level, even outdrawing the men's Briar tournament in 1998, Schmirler was a devoted mother. She was pregnant with her first girl during her 1997 tournament and was a nursing mother during the '98 Olympics. While Schmirler wore many hats in life - curler, Olympian, television personality - those who knew her best say the one role she savoured the most was the one cancer shortchanged her of - that of mother.
While Schmirler was pregnant with her first child at the world championships in Switzerland in 1997, she was asked how pregnancy affected her. She said, "It gives me more balance." When asked in what way, she answered, "Both ways." That statement captured her perfectly - balanced on the ice and balanced in life.
Those special people that we call "mothers" succeed in all aspects of life - in the community, in the workplace, in the church, in social life, even on the world stage. But they also know that all those achievements rank a distant second to the high and holy calling of being a mother to the children that God has given them.
*
I was a rotten teenager. Not your average spoiled, know-it-all, not-going-to-clean-my-room, getting-an-attitude-because-I'm-15 teenager. No, I was a manipulative, lying, acid-tongued monster, who realized early on that I could make things go my way with just a few minor adjustments. The writers for today's hottest soap opera could not have created a worse "villainess." A few nasty comments here, a lie or two there, maybe an evil glare for a finishing touch, and things would be grand. Or so I thought.
For the most part, and on the outside, I was a good kid. A giggly, pug-nose tomboy who liked to play sports and who thrived on competition (a nice way of saying: somewhat pushy and demanding). Which is probably why most people allowed me to squeak by using what I now call "bulldozer behavior tactics," with no regard for anyone I felt to be of value. For a while, anyway.
Since I was perceptive enough to get some people to bend my way, it amazes me how long it took to realize how I was hurting so many others. Not only did I succeed in pushing away many of my closest friends by trying to control them; I also managed to sabotage, time and time again, the most precious relationship in my life: my relationship with my mother.
Even today, almost 10 years since the birth of the new me, my former behavior astonishes me each time I reach into my memories. Hurtful comments that cut and stung the people I cared most about. Acts of confusion and anger that seemed to rule my every move -- all to make sure that things went my way.
My mother, who gave birth to me at age 38 against her doctor's wishes, would cry to me, "I waited so long for you, please don't push me away. I want to help you!"
I would reply with my best face of stone, "I didn't ask for you! I never wanted you to care about me! Leave me alone and forget I ever lived!"
My mother began to believe I really meant it. My actions proved nothing less.
I was mean and manipulative, trying to get my way at any cost. Like many young girls in high school, the boys whom I knew were off limits were always the first ones I had to date. Sneaking out of the house at all hours of the night just to prove I could do it. Juggling complex lies that were always on the verge of blowing up in my face. Finding any way to draw attention to myself while simultaneously trying to be invisible.
Ironically, I wish I could say I had been heavy into drugs during that period of my life, swallowing mind-altering pills and smoking things that changed my personality, thus accounting for the terrible, razor-sharp words that came flying from my mouth. However, that was not the case. My only addiction was hatred; my only high was inflicting pain.
But then I asked myself why. Why the need to hurt? And why the people I cared about the most? Why the need for all the lies? Why the attacks on my mother? I would drive myself mad with all the why's until one day, it all exploded in a suicidal rage.
Lying awake the following night at the "resort" (my pet name for the hospital), after an unsuccessful, gutless attempt to jump from a vehicle moving at 80 miles per hour, one thing stood out more than my Keds with no shoe laces. I didn't want to die.
And I did not want to inflict any more pain on people to cover up what I was truly trying to hide myself: self-hatred. Self-hatred unleashed on everyone else.
I saw my mother's pained face for the first time in years -- warm, tired brown eyes filled with nothing but thanks for her daughter's new lease on life and love for the child she waited 38 years to bear.
My first encounter with unconditional love. What a powerful feeling.
Despite all the lies I had told her, she still loved me. I cried on her lap for hours one afternoon and asked why she still loved me after all the horrible things I did to her. She just looked down at me, brushed the hair out of my face and said frankly, "I don't know."
A kind of smile penetrated her tears as the lines in her tested face told me all that I needed to know. I was her daughter, but more important, she was my mother. Not every rotten child is so lucky. Not every mother can be pushed to the limits I explored time and time again, and venture back with feelings of love.
Unconditional love is the most precious gift we can give. Being forgiven for the past is the most precious gift we can receive. I dare not say we could experience this pure love twice in one lifetime.
I was one of the lucky ones. I know that. I want to extend the gift my mother gave me to all the "rotten teenagers" in the world who are confused.
It's okay to feel pain, to need help, to feel love -- just feel it without hiding. Come out from under the protective covers, from behind the rigid walls and the suffocating personas, and take a breath of life.
__________________________
By Sarah J. Vogt from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Copyright 1997 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Kimberly Kirberger
*
One day a man stopped into the convenience store to get a newspaper like he normally does. Today he noticed that the owner of the store had tears in his eyes and kept looking out the window. He asked what was going on.
The store owner said, "Do you see that bus bench over there? There's a woman who comes there every day around this time. She sits there for about and hour, knitting and waiting. Buses come and go, but she never gets on one and no one ever gets off for her to meet. The other day, I carried her a cup of coffee and sat with her for awhile.
"Her only son lives a long way away. She last saw him two years ago, when he boarded one of the buses right there. He is married now, and she has never met her daughter-in-law or seen their new child. She told me, "It helps to come here and wait. I pray for them as I knit little things for the baby, and I imagine them in their tiny apartment, saving money to come home. I can't wait to see them.
The owner continued, saying, he had looked out just now and there they were, getting off the bus. The look on her face when they fell into her arms and when she saw that grandchild for the first time was the nearest thing to pure joy he had ever seen. He said, "I'll never forget that look as long as I live."
The next day the same man returned to the convenience store. The owner was again behind the counter. Before he could say or do anything, He asked, "You sent her son the money for the bus tickets, didn't you?"
The store owner looked back with eyes full of love and a smile that was the nearest thing to pure joy this man had ever seen. He replied, "Yes, I sent him the money. I'll never forget that look as long as I live."
*
A friend and I were standing in line at the grocery store the other day, and I was telling her how lazy my children were. I had come in from work that morning, and like most times, my house was wrecked.
"I believe children nowadays are just out for what they can get. I bend over backwards for them, and they can't even help keep our house clean. It wouldn't bother me so, but it's the woman who looks bad if the house is a mess."
"Do you know how blessed you are?" a woman behind us asked. "I would love to go home and find my house a mess. I wouldn't mind my carpet being ruined or the dishes left everywhere. I wouldn't mind the dirty clothes being piled high or the many socks to match. I wouldn't even mind anyone talking about my dirty home. Matter of fact, I would love it. I would dearly love to kick my way through the house just to get to my kids and be able to hug them, kiss them and tell them how much I love them. You see, my two children were killed in an auto accident and now it's just my husband and me. My house stays clean, my clothes stay put up, the dishes are done. There are no fingerprints on my walls, no mysterious spots on my carpets. There are no sounds of arguing, no slamming doors, no laughter, no 'I love you Mom.' So you see, you are very blessed. What I would give to be going through what you are right now. How I would love to be able to hold my kids, wipe away their tears, share their dreams. Just to watch them play. If I had my children, I wouldn't care how my house looked. I would be happy just to have them."
Now if you come into my house and see a big old mess, you can think bad thoughts if you want, but I feel greatly blessed.
__________________
By Tammy Laws Lawson from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, Copyright 2000 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
I was in a hurry.
I came rushing through our dining room in my best suit, focused on getting ready for an evening meeting. Gillian, my four-year-old, was dancing about to one of her favorite oldies, "Cool," from "West Side Story."
I was in a hurry, on the verge of being late. Yet a small voice inside of me said, Stop.
So I stopped. I looked at her. I reached out, grabbed her hand and spun her around. My seven-year-old, Caitlin, came into our orbit, and I grabbed her, too. The three of us did a wild jitterbug around the dining room and into the living room. We were laughing. We were spinning. Could the neighbors see the lunacy through the windows? It didn't matter. The song ended with a dramatic flourish and our dance finished with it. I patted them on their bottoms and sent them to take their baths.
They went up the stairs, gasping for breath, their giggles bouncing off the walls. I went back to business. I was bent over, shoving papers into my briefcase, when I overheard my youngest say to her sister, "Caitlin, isn't Mommy the bestest one?"
I froze. How close I had come to hurrying through life, missing that moment. My mind went to the awards and diplomas that covered the walls of my office. No award, no achievement I have ever earned can match this: Isn't Mommy the bestest one?
My child said that at age four. I don't expect her to say it at age 14. But at age 40, if she bends down over that pine box to say good-bye to the cast-off container of my soul, I want her to say it then.
Isn't Mommy the bestest one?
It doesn't fit on my resume. But I want it on my tombstone.
________
By Gina Barrett Schlesinger from Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff
Night after night, she came to tuck me in, even long after my childhood years. Following her longstanding custom, she'd lean down and push my long hair out of the way, then kiss my forehead.
I don't remember when it first started annoying me -- her hands pushing my hair that way. But it did annoy me, for they felt work-worn and rough against my young skin. Finally, one night, I lashed out at her: "Don't do that anymore -- your hands are too rough!" She didn't say anything in reply. But never again did my mother close out my day with that familiar expression of her love. Lying awake long afterward, my words haunted me.But pride stifled my conscience, and I didn't tell her I was sorry.
Time after time, with the passing years, my thoughts returned to that night.By then I missed my mother's hands, missed her goodnight kiss upon my forehead. Sometimes the incident seemed very close, sometimes far away.But always it lurked, hauntingly, in the back of my mind.
Well, the years have passed, and I'm not a little girl anymore. Mom is in her mid-seventies, and those hands I once thought to be so rough are still doing things for me and my family. She's been our doctor, reaching into a medicine cabinet for the remedy to calm a young girl's stomach or soothe a boy's scraped knee. She cooks the best fried chicken in the world...gets stains out of blue jeans like I never could...and still insists on dishing out ice cream at any hour of the day or night.
Through the years, my mother's hands have put in countless hours of toil, and most of hers were before perma-pressed fabrics and automatic washers!
Now, my own children are grown and gone. Mom no longer has Dad, and on special occasions, I find myself drawn next door to spend the night with her. So it was that late on Thanksgiving Eve, as I drifted into sleep in the bedroom of my youth, a familiar hand hesitantly stole across my face to brush the hair from my forehead. Then a kiss, ever so gently, touched my brow.
In my memory, for the thousandth time, I recalled the night my surly young voice complained: "Don't do that anymore -- your hands are too rough!" I reacted involuntarily. Catching Mom's hand in mind, I blurted out how sorry I was for that night. I thought she'd remember, as I did. But Mom didn't know what I was talking about. She had forgotten -- and forgiven -- long ago.
That night, I fell asleep with a new appreciation for my gentle mother and her caring hands. And the guilt I had carried around for so long was nowhere to be found.
____________________________________
By Louisa Godissart McQuillen, from A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, Copyright 1998 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff
*
Quarreling between her
two sons prompted the mother to rush to the kitchen. Eight year old Bobby and four year old Jackie were having a tug of war
with the cookie jar. Only once cookie remained in the jar, and each boy
thought it was his. Taking the cookie jar from the two youngsters, their mother
calmly announced. "I'll solve the problem for you. I'll eat the last cookie
myself." The boys looked up at their mother in unbelief. Then the
four year old, with a mischievous grin on his face said, "Oh, no you won't, Mom. Whoever heard of a selfish mother?"
A teacher put this
question to little John in the arithmetic class. "John, suppose your mother made a peach pie and there were 10 of you at the
table... your mother and father and eight children... how much of the pie
would you get?" "A ninth, Ma'am," was the prompt answer. "No John. Now pay
attention," said the teacher. "There are 10 of you. Ten, remember. Don't you
know your fractions?" "Yes Ma'am," was the swift replay of little John, "I know
my fractions, but I know my mother, too. She'd say that she didn't want
any pie." Mothers, you unselfishness makes an impression on the little
ones.
Susannah Wesley, who bore
17 children, made time each week to take each of
those boys and girls aside and counsel with them, speaking to them
about the love of Jesus. Is it any wonder that one boy in that family became the greatest preacher of his generation, and another son became the
greatest hymn writer in the English-speaking world? With a mother like that, we can
understand why Charles Wesley wrote these lines, ardent with devotion
to Christ: O for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace! Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
'Tis music in the sinner's ears;
'Tis life, and healthy, and peace.
Our friends' two boys were about to eat with the baby-sitter when the
six-year-old said, "You can't sit in Daddy's seat."
"Daddy's not home," the baby-sitter replied. "Since I'm responsible for you while he's gone, I can sit here. Today I'm the boss."
The four-year-old quickly piped up, "If you're the boss, you sit over there." He pointed his fork to his mother's chair.
__________
Ellen P. Bernard; Reader's Digest, Copyright (c) October 2000,
http://www.readersdigest.com/
*
[Original illustration at this number was added to HolwickID #2063]
The young preacher was shocked to hear the well-known evangelist utter the words, “I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life in the arms of another man's wife. Yes, I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life in the arms of another man's wife.” Then, following a pause, the evangelist added, “That woman was my mother.”
“I've got to use that!” the young pastor thought to himself. A few weeks later, as he was speaking to a civic group, the phrase leapt into his mind and he exclaimed, “I have spent some of the happiest days of my life in the arms of another man's wife.” Then, after another long pause, the young man muttered meekly, “But I can't remember who she was.”
Some years ago, I was passing through Mt. Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was looking for the graves of the distinguished dead, when my attention was called to a humble, little mound with a little grass and shrubbery about it. The thing that drew me to it was the peculiarity of the head stone. It was a very uninviting piece of marble, and on it was the picture of a hand with a finger pointing upward, and across it was written: “Mother.”
This was enough to tell me a great story of love, and self-sacrifice , and toil, and Christian faithfulness. Her life had been a sign-board pointing upward to God and heaven. Oh, may it be true of every mother reading this, that her life shall be a sign-board, directing those who come within her influence to things that are better than life.
-- L. G. Broughton
Marian Anderson got her start by scrubbing floors for ten cents an hour so that she could buy a pawnshop violin. The church she attended recognized her rare talent and raised money for a professional voice teacher to work with her. When the teacher pronounced her ready, she went to New York where critics crucified her. She returned home to regroup. Her mother and her church encouraged her and paid for more lessons.
Because of the intense racial prejudice in America, she went to Europe and took the continent by storm. She came back to America and sang at the Lincoln Memorial with more than 60,000 people in attendance. She sang "O Mia Fernando," "Ave Maria," "Gospel Train," and "My Soul Is Anchored in the Lord," among other songs.
One day a reporter asked Marian what the most satisfying moment in her life was. Without hesitation, she responded that (it was) when she was able to tell her mother that she did not have to take in any more washing. The reporter asked, "What did your mother give you?"
Marian Anderson responded, "Everything she had."
That's greatness, and giving everything we have is our key to greatness.
In December 2002, 150 mostly Christian inmates from three Thai prisons united in a choir to perform at Bangkok's Thai Cultural Center in honor of the 75th birthday of the king of Thailand. During the occasion, which received national press coverage, retired Southern Baptist missionaries Jack and Glad Martin were honored for nearly 30 years of prison ministry by Purachai Piumsombun, Thailand's minister of justice.
At the end of the evening, a young prisoner stepped forward from the choir and told his story with a shaky voice. He had promised his mother early on in life that he would make something of himself, perhaps become a policeman to help protect society. But bad friends led him into drug use, which in turn led to addiction and drug dealing.
One day he snatched his mother's purse to get money, knocking her down and breaking her arm. He was arrested the same day -- and later sentenced to six years in prison for selling drugs. Later, he heard about the God who was being preached by the Christian prison ministry team. He timidly asked if he could join the men's choir and found that they worshiped this same God. Eventually he gave his life to Christ. He wrote his mother and asked her forgiveness for all the sorrow he had caused her.
As he spoke that evening at the concert, an older woman emerged from the far end of the stage and walked slowly toward him. She gently touched his shoulder. He turned, and in a sudden burst of sorrow fell at her feet, clasping her ankles and begging, “Mom, oh Mom, can you forgive me?” They were led off the stage in joyful reunion.
Later, the justice minister approached the young man and asked, “Son, how much longer do you have to serve on your sentence?” He replied, “A year and a half, sir.” The minister responded: “No, you don't. I will pardon you within the month. You have served your time and I see true repentance. You aren't the kind that we want to keep behind bars!”
The young man was released in January 2003.
*
[The original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickId #16351]
On Sunday, August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after taking off from the Detroit airport. One hundred fifty-five people were killed. One survived: a 4-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia.
News accounts say when rescuers found Cecelia, they did not believe she had been on the plane. Investigators first assumed Cecelia had been a passenger in one of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed. But when the passenger register for the flight was checked, there was Cecelia's name.
Cecelia survived because, as the plane was falling, Cecelia's mother, Paula Chican, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and then would not let her go.
Nothing could separate that child from her parent's love — not tragedy or disaster, not the fall or the flames that followed, not height nor depth, not life nor death. Such is the love of our Savior for us. He left heaven, lowered himself to us, and covered us with the sacrifice of His own body to save us.
___________
Quote is adapted from Bryan Chapell's "In The Grip of Grace" (Baker, 1992).
===================
Another version from Mitchell Dillon, in Illustration Exchange Internet Newsletter
Love to Last a Lifetime
Occasionally, a news item will really capture my attention. This happened on the evening of August 16th, 1987. I was watching the news when it was reported that a Northwest Airlines jet had crashed just after take off from the Detroit airport, killing 155 people. As horrific as the report was, it wasn’t the crash or the casualties that surprised me as much as what followed. The lone survivor of the crash was a four year old little girl. I remember wondering how a small, frail, four year old could survive when everyone else had died. Was she sitting in just the right seat? Was it her size that helped her avoid the fate of the other passengers?
Seventeen years later I came across the answer to this mystery in an article that mentioned the Detroit crash. In it I learned that the little girl’s name was Cecelia and that the first responders to the accident were so surprised to find her alive that they concluded that she must have been a passenger in one of the vehicles on the highway where the plane had crashed. Though very young, Cecelia was old enough to tell the amazing story behind her miraculous survival.
According to the little girl’s testimony, as the plane was falling from the sky, her mother unbuckled her own seat belt, knelt down in front of her, wrapped her arms and body around her, and refused to let go! Cecelia’s mother had used her own body to shield her from death!
As I marveled over this unimaginable act of self-less love, it occurred to me that Cecelia would now be a grown woman. As such, she would have grown up without the tangible love of her mother. Her mother wasn’t there to send her off on that first day of school, or available to counsel her during those difficult teen years, or present to cheer for her on graduation day, or be there to cry for joy on her wedding day.
Nevertheless, I am sure of one thing. There has never been a day, no, not one moment when Cecelia has ever questioned her mother’s love. By one pure, bold, and courageous act, this mother sent her daughter a message of love sufficient to last her a life time. Such an unequivocal and selfless act stands firm like a rock, immovable and unchallengeable. In the face of such love, time and distance become irrelevant.
Did you know that Jesus was moved by just such a love when He put himself in harms way to secure your salvation? By setting aside the exercise of His deity and taking on the humble form of humanity, Jesus unbuckled His seat belt. By entering Jerusalem to meet his prophesied end, He knelt before you. By suffering on the cross, He wrapped His arms and body around you and refused to let go! By dying on the cross Jesus offered Himself, His own body, to shield you from eternal death!
When God seems distant, you must remember the message of the Cross. Such an unequivocal act of love stands firm like a rock, immovable and unchallengeable. In the face of such love, time and distance become irrelevant. Listen, believe, and know that you are truly loved.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
*
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #2020]
I learned the wonderful lesson of forgiveness from my mother because she left us when I was eleven; I was the oldest of five. I loved her every time she came to visit us and grew very bitter every time she would leave. It was then that I made up my mind that when I had children, I would have my revenge. I resolved that she would never be allowed to see her grandchildren.
And then one day, I married Gloria and we had our first child, a son. Although my mother only lived a mile away, I knew she would never see her grandson. However, shortly after my son's birth, something happened that changed my decision forever. About six months after his birth, a truck driver introduced me to the love of God and to His forgiveness. I then realized immediately how wrong I was. I went to my mother and it was then that she taught me about forgiveness, because I had to ask her to forgive me for the resentment I had carried for all those years. After that I called her weekly to tell her she was the best mother a kid could ever have had. I took her to Europe, I bought her a home and I did the eulogy at her funeral and told everyone there she was the most wonderful mother a kid could ever have.
But you might say, "She left you." Yes, she made a mistake, but she never meant to do it. You see sin makes us do a lot of things that we never mean to do. So today I can truly say that one of my greatest accomplishments was I made my mother happy.
I used to say the greatest thing you could ever leave your children is a memory that you loved your mother or father even if they left you, but then I changed that to the greatest thing you can ever do is leave your children with the memory that you loved God. However, after more thought, reflection and experience I then I saw that I was wrong there too. Because my children, as they grow, will see that I'm inconsistent and that at times I'm a little bit of a hypocrite too. So now I teach that the greatest thing you can leave your children is the memory that God loves them just as they are and accepts them and forgives them.
Magnets And Mothers
Read: Proverbs 31:10-31
Honor your ... mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you. -- Deuteronomy 5:16
A teacher gave her class of second-graders a lesson on the magnet and what it does. The next day, in a written test, she included this question: "My name has six letters. The first one is 'm.' I pick up things. What am I?" When the test papers were turned in, the teacher was astonished to find that almost 50 percent of the students answered the question with the word mother.
Yes, mothers do pick up things. But they are much more than "magnets," gathering up clothes and picking up toys around the house. As willing as many mothers are to do such chores, they have a higher calling than that.
A good mother loves her family and provides an atmosphere where each member can find acceptance, security, and understanding. She is there when the children need a listening ear, a comforting word, a warm hug, or a loving touch on a fevered brow. And for the Christian mother, her greatest joy is in teaching her children to trust and to love Jesus as their Savior.
Mothers like that deserve to be honored -- not just on one special day each year but every day. And that recognition should involve more than words; it ought to be shown in respect and thoughtfulness and loving deeds. -- RWD
Of all the earthly things God gives,
There's one above all others:
It is the precious, priceless gift
Of loving Christian mothers. -- Anon.
Godly mothers not only bring you up, they bring you to God.
Being a mother of two very active boys, ages seven and one, I am sometimes worried about their making a shambles of my carefully decorated home. In their innocence and play, they occasionally knock over my favorite lamp or upset my well-designed arrangements. In these moments when nothing feels sacred, I remember the lesson I learned from my wise mother-in-law, Ruby.
Ruby is the mother of 6 and grandmother of 13. She is the embodiment of gentleness, patience and love.
One Christmas, all the children and grandchildren were gathered as usual at Ruby's home. Just the month before, Ruby had bought beautiful new white carpeting after living with the "same old carpet" for over 25 years. She was overjoyed with the new look it gave her home.
My brother-in-law, Arnie, had just distributed his gifts for all the nieces and nephews - prized homemade honey from his beehives. They were excited. But as fate would have it, eight-year-old Sheena spilled her tub of honey on Grandma's new carpeting and trailed it throughout the entire downstairs of the house.
Crying, Sheena ran into the kitchen and into Grandma Ruby's arms. "Grandma, I've spilled my honey all over your brand new carpet."
Grandma Ruby knelt down, looked tenderly into Sheena's tearful eyes and said, "Don't worry sweetheart, we can get you more honey."
____________________
by Lynn Robertson from Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff
*
Ed Murphy had been raised in a Roman Catholic family in the New England area. He was fourteen years old before he even saw a Protestant, and when he saw his first one he expected to see horns sprouting from his head, and a tail waving around behind. Through a remarkable experience, where God put him in a lonely lumber camp with a Christian boy, he came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. This lad gave Ed a New Testament, and, through the reading of that New Testament, Ed Murphy's soul was captured for Christ.
Some time afterward he determined to obey God's call to go to a mission field, and he enrolled in Biola University in California. When his Catholic family heard that he was planning to go to Bible School, they called him in, and told him that if he went there he could never be their son again. His mother was particularly opposed to it, and told him that if he went he was never to come home again. But Ed felt led of God, and so he went to Bible School. When he drew near to the close of the first year he had a job lined up for the summer to meet his expenses, but he was lacking sixty dollars to pay the final bills for the current semester. Before he took his final exam, it was required that he pay this money. He tried every way he knew to raise the money, but he couldn't. Finally, in desperation, he wrote his mother saying, "Mother, I know you don't like what I'm doing, but I feel led of God to do it. I have now come to a difficult time. I lack sixty dollars of my school expenses, but I have to pay it before I take my final exam. You've helped me in other matters in the past, and I just wondered if, perhaps, you might relent and help me again. I'll pay you back this summer."
His mother wrote back, "Son, when you left this house to go to a Protestant Bible college, I told you that you were never to come back again. I wanted nothing to do with you as long as you continued in the Protestant faith. You told me at that time that your God would take care of you, but now that you come to a time of trouble you run back to me. If your God is really the God you say he is, then let him take care of you. I will be in Los Angeles this next weekend. You tell me that if you haven't received this money you will have to drop out of school. I'll be at this address, and if you want to come home with me, come there, and I'll know that you've dropped all this foolishness."
It was a great time of testing for Ed. He prayed about it, asked God again to supply, but the day came on which he had to take the exams and there was no money. So he packed his bags, called his mother, and told her he would meet her to go home with her. Just as he was going out the door with his bags the Dean of Education stopped him, and asked him to come into the office for a moment. Ed went in, and the Dean said, "How much was it that I said you owed the school?" Ed said, "Sixty dollars." The Dean said, "Well, it's strange. Just as you were going down the hall I was reading this slip with your name on it which says you have forty dollars to your credit." Ed said, "There must be some mistake. I don't know anything about that. I only know I owe the sixty dollars." So the Dean called to check it out, and it turned out that someone that very morning, quite anonymously, had sent in one hundred dollars, credited to the account of Ed Murphy.
When he went to meet his mother she said, "Well, son, you've given up your Protestant faith, have you?" He said, "No, mother, I haven't." She said, "But you can't go back to school." He said, "Yes, I can. God has supplied, and given me not only the sixty dollars but forty dollars in addition." His mother did not say a word. She turned around, went out the door, and went home. But two weeks later she wrote to him, "Ed, I want to know this kind of a God." That incident has been a source of strength to Ed Murphy through the years. Whenever he is discouraged he has learned to look back to the time when God dealt with him in this remarkable way.
[According to Snopes.com, this story is apocryphal. See http://www.snopes.com/glurge/birdwing.htm ]
An article in National Geographic several years ago provided a penetrating picture of God's wings. After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage.
One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother's wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise.
She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live.
"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge" (Psalm 91:4).
Under His wings, under His wings,
Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
Safely abide forever.
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Over the years, one of my areas of giftedness has been in the area of sleeping. Well, you know, the Bible says to do whatever you do with all your heart, and I think that certainly applies to sleeping. Right? I'd give our kids a time to be in, but I didn't always remain conscious that long. And they could ring the doorbell because they forgot their key, they could stomp upstairs, they could stomp over our bed, for that matter, and I would barely stir. Oh, but not Karen. Oh, no, no! There's something about the way many mothers are wired. They sleep real light - if at all - until everybody's home safe. It's a mother thing. They just can't rest until all the kids are in.
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Are The Children All In?"
Even though you're all grown up now, your mother may still be like that today. Or you had a mother who was like that. You may have been blessed with a mom who was a praying mother, who wanted or wants more than anything else for her kids to be in-in God's family ... including you.
Our word for today from the Word of God is from an encounter Jesus had with a hurting mother. It's about the miracle He did for her. It's in Luke 7:12-15. "As Jesus approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out - the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, His heart went out to her and He said, 'Don't cry.' Then He went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!' The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his Mother." Wow! What great words!
Jesus is still doing that today. He's doing something supernatural to give a son or daughter back to a mother, not with a physical resurrection, but with a spiritual rescue. In fact, it may be that the prayers of your mother for you have kept God in pursuit of you all these years. More than anything else on earth, she has wanted for you to know the Savior whose love changed her life.
My wife's grandfather, Bill Hadley, was a great guy with a deadly weakness - he was an alcoholic. Alcohol cost him his job, his family, his freedom, and ultimately his hope. One night he was making his way down State Street in Chicago to end his life in Lake Michigan. We never knew until recently the prayers that saved him that night.
We found this old photograph of the man his mother called Will. And on the back is this inscription in her handwriting: "This new year 1908. Oh God, bring him back into the fold. Oh, Will, every night when I read my Bible, I look at your picture and ask God to give you grace to keep you from falling and to fill your heart with His love. You may see this after I am gone from this world and know that I never ceased to pray for you. Mother."
Will never did see that inscription until after his mother was gone. But the power of her prayers reached beyond her grave. That night he was going to end his life, he walked by an old rescue mission and heard a song his mother used to sing. He wandered in and he ended up giving his broken life to Jesus Christ. He never touched alcohol again, he spent the rest of his life living for the Savior that had meant so much to his mother.
There may be - or there may have been - a dear mother who never gave up praying for you to know Jesus as your Savior. He died for every sin you've ever committed. He waits to forgive you and give you eternal life in heaven. Isn't it time all those prayers were answered? Isn't it finally time for you to open your heart to Jesus?
This is all about a mother who prayed for you and a Savior who died for you. It will be your mother's question in heaven some day, "Are the children all in?" I hope you'll be there.
________________
Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"
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Teenage girls who have close relationships with their mothers wait longer to have sex for the first time, researchers reported Wednesday.
Their findings also indicate girls are less likely to have sex when their moms strongly disapprove, suggesting that mothers matter more than they might sometimes believe.
"We need to be more tuned in to what's happening in our children's lives," said the study's author, Dr. Robert Blum, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Adolescent Health and Development. "Otherwise, how can we give them clear, effective messages about how to deal with the choices they will inevitably face?"
The same impact was not found for mothers and sons, and researchers concluded that other influences, such as friends, simply may be stronger for boys.
Talking about birth control did not appear to have any effect on teens' sexual behavior.
The study is based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a massive federal investigation of teen behavior. This research examined interviews with 2,006 teens ages 14-15 who said they were virgins. The same teens were interviewed a year later, and 10.8 percent of the boys and 15.8 percent of the girls had had sex by the second interview.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota examined extensive interviews with their mothers (fathers were not interviewed) to try to determine what made the difference between those who became sexually active and those who stayed virgins.
They found little to explain why some boys began having sex and others didn't. But they said several factors made a difference for girls.
Specifically, the study released Wednesday found that mothers whose daughters were still virgins shared several qualities:
They strongly disapproved of their daughters having sex.
They were satisfied with their relationship with their daughters.
They frequently talked with the parents of their daughters' friends.
These mothers also more likely to have a college degree.
"Parents say they talk until they're blue in the face and their kids still don't listen," Blum said. "Kids will pay attention to their parents' values on sex. But talk alone does not get the message through."
Other factors made no difference in teen sex, including how religious the mothers were, how often they talked about sex, how uncomfortable they were talking about sex and whether they recommended that their daughters use a specific kind of birth control.
The study was published Wednesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health. A second study published in 2000, which also used data from the adolescent survey, found similar results.
The 2000 study, which examined eighth- to 11th-graders, suggested that teens don't always know that their mothers disapprove of sex. Among mothers who strongly disapprove, 30 percent of their teen daughters and 45 percent of their teen sons guessed otherwise. "While most mothers disapprove of their sons or daughters being sexually active, their kids don't always get the message," researchers wrote in their summary.
When teens do realize that their mothers disapprove of sex, they are less likely to have it. In addition, younger teens are more likely to realize that their mothers' disapprove when they feel close to their moms.
The knowledge gap goes both ways. Many mothers don't realize their kids are already having sex. Half of the parents of sexually active teens said their child was not having sex.
"Parents and especially mothers should be aware of the role they play in influencing their adolescent daughter's sexual behaviors," researchers concluded. "Parents need to be clear about their values and then clearly articulate them to their children and adolescents."
09/04/02 09:40 EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.
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Mrs. Smith's three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. Getting back together, they discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother.
The first said, "I built a big house for our mother."
The second said, "I sent her a Mercedes with a driver."
The third smiled and said, "I've got you, both beat. You know how Mom enjoys the Bible, and you know she can't see very well. I sent her a brown parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took 20 monks in a monastery 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000.00 a year for 10 years, but it was worth it. Mom just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it."
Soon thereafter, Mom sent out her letters of thanks:
"Milton," she wrote the first son, "The house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house."
"Gerald," she wrote to another, "I am too old to travel. I stay home all the time, so I never use the Mercedes. And the driver is so rude!"
"Dearest Donald," she wrote to her third son, "You were the only son to have the good sense to know what your mother likes. That chicken was delicious!"
Bonnie Brady of Ledgewood, New Jersey, wrote this note to her son T.J. soon after he got his driver's license:
__________________________________
As you began a lifetime of driving there are a few things you should know. As your mother, I fear for you! There are so many things you don't know. I wish I could inject you with my experience. Do you know how to avoid "black ice"? Do you know how to avoid peer pressure - not to speed, not to drink and drive? Do you know how important you are to me? Do you know that if you are hurt - I am hurt. If you bleed - I bleed. If you die - I die.
Take care - be careful - you have a role to fill on life's stage - I need to see you finish what I've started.
A car is a wonderful thing - It is the first step to independence, freedom and young adulthood. Take care with these responsibilities as they can be deadly - a car is not a toy but a wonderful necessity - it symbolizes freedom, independence and adulthood. I know you are ready for these things but I am not so sure that I am. Please be careful - I love you with my whole soul and I need to know that you will survive the teen years so that I can enjoy you as an adult.
______________________________
Looking back, Bonnie said, "All my deepest fears were in that letter. I realized he was on the brink of so many wonderful things -- independence and college. I was going to type the note, put it on his dashboard with a new key chain this week."
T.J. never saw the note. He and his best friend Pat Milde died in a car accident on January 14, 2001, on Emmans Road in Roxbury Township, New Jersey, about one mile from T.J.'s home. They had had their licenses 40 days. (T.J. was not driving)
Media pundits and many on the talk-show circuit are outraged with the announcement this week of the largest long-term study of child care in U.S. history. Anti-day care folks are excited, because the study supports their view. The pro-day care crowd, however, are on the warpath, because the study says their programs have failed.
Unfortunately for those trying to claim bias, this research wasn't conducted by conservatives; it's from the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. They followed 1,100 children in ten cities and in many settings: relatives, nannies, large day care centers, preschools, and more, over a ten-year period.
The results? There's a direct correlation between the amount of time spent in child care and undesirable traits, like aggression, defiance, and disobedience. Dr. Jay Belsky, a principal investigator for the study, reports that "as time goes up, so do behavior problems. Children who spent over thirty hours a week in child care are more demanding, more non-compliant, and they are more aggressive." They scored higher on "cruelty," "bullying," and "meanness," as well as "talking too much."
This is especially sobering when we're hearing so much these days about bullying in the schools, with violence and persecution of certain students. There are many, like Senator Hillary Clinton and modern-day disciples of the Enlightenment thinker Jean Jacque Rousseau (who thought all kids should be raised by the state), who have claimed that, with "quality" child care and more taxpayer dollars, such problems would be solved. Well, the new study puts the lie to that idea.
It shows that children who spend most of their time in child care are three times as likely to exhibit behavior problems in kindergarten as those cared for primarily by their mothers. It holds true regardless of the type or quality of care, family socio-economic status, or even if the mothers themselves were the paid care givers.
Despite criticism and denials, once again common sense wins out. Have you ever looked into the face of an infant when its mother comes into view? He or she lights up whenever that beloved person comes near. Now, Daddy and others are special, but mothers they adore.
When this natural relationship doesn't exist, children develop an underlying anger. At what, they may not know, but the bitterness they feel comes out later in behavior problems, and in the sense that something is wrong.
Researchers explored many possible causes for these results: overworked parents, poorly trained day care workers, and more. But they neglected the most important reason. God put it into the heart of mothers and children to spend their hours together as much as possible.
Now, let me be quick to say that there are some parents (like single moms) who have no other choice than day care. Many single moms, in my eyes, are heroines for the way in which they handle difficult situations. But even as they do it, we must not fail to grasp what we know to be true and what this new study affirms: that where there is a choice, moms need to spend quality and quantity time with their kids. There is simply no substitute for the mother-child bond.
As Christians, we know why. It's a relationship designed by God, and nothing -- nothing -- can replace it.
_____________________
For further reference:
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. "Link Found Between Behavioral Problems and Time in Child Care." New York Times Online, 19 April 2001.
_____________________
Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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A mentally handicapped teenager was found 1,925 miles from home in Brazil after he lost sight of his mother and wandered aimlessly for two years, a local newspaper reported.
Joao Aparecido de Souza, 19, walked all the way from Brazil's sprawling industrial capital Sao Paulo in the south to a small town near the city of Natal on the north-eastern tip of Brazil, the Diario de Natal said Thursday.
For the last six months, he had been living in the house of Ana Francisca do Nascimento, a cook who found him wandering on a highway near the town of Angicos.
"He only said he had lost his mother in Sao Paulo and walked all the way here," do Nascimento told the newspaper. "He said he never hitched a ride, and really, he is frightened to death of cars."
The paper said De Souza was located after a neighbor heard his story and sent e-mails to missing persons departments across the country.
An investigator in Sao Paulo located the young man's family in a poor area close to Tirandentes railway station.
"I went to the hospital...and I got lost on the way out," de Souza was reported to have said. "I just started to walk without knowing where I was."
^REUTERS
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A 93-year-old Kenyan woman has been sentenced to four months in jail for cutting down her son's banana plants, newspapers reported on Friday.
Esther Nyambura Kaburu burst into tears as she was led out of the court in the central town of Nyeri to serve her sentence, imposed after she failed to pay a 5,000 Kenya shilling ($60) fine, the East African Standard Newspaper reported.
The Newspaper said Kaburu admitted to slashing 12 banana stems belonging to her son and daughter-in-law, with whom she had been embroiled in a land feud.
Last year a 70-year-old woman was jailed in Nyeri after being convicted of trying to bribe a magistrate with a packet of tea.
HOUSTON - Andrea Yates told police she began thinking several months ago about killing her five children and finally did it this week because she believed she was a bad mother and they were hopelessly damaged.
Without emotion, Mrs. Yates also described how she methodically drowned the children Wednesday morning in her Clear Lake home, chasing down her oldest son, Noah, after he saw his baby sister floating lifeless in the bathtub and tried to get away, said a police official familiar with the case.
She told police she had already drowned her three middle sons and carried their bodies to a back bedroom when her 7-year-old son walked into the open doorway of the bathroom and saw the full tub where 6-month-old Mary lay, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The kid asked, 'What's wrong with Mary?'" said the official familiar with the details of Mrs. Yates' taped confession. "The mama turned and told him to get in the tub. The kid took off running."
Mrs. Yates chased the boy and "grabbed ... and wrestled him" back to the bathroom. There, she told police, she forced him down into the water beside his dead sister.
"She essentially said she had realized that she was a 'bad mother' and she felt that the children were disabled - that they were not developing normally," said the official, recounting details of Mrs. Yates' 90-minute interview with police. "She told us that she had thought about doing this for several months."
Even in a city that has seen more than its share of sensational murders, the horrific details of the Yates slayings have stunned veteran police and law enforcement officials.
"I've been here for 15 years," said Joe Ownby, the Harris County assistant district attorney assigned to lead Mrs. Yates' prosecution. "This is the most horrendous thing that I have ever seen."
Court appearance
The 36-year-old mother made a brief court appearance Friday morning and was given a court-appointed defense lawyer. After shuffling into a closed courtroom with arms tightly folded, she softly answered "yes, ma'am," and "no, ma'am" to the judge's questions about her inability to pay for an attorney.
Mrs. Yates stood slightly slumped in front of the judge's bench during the hearing, her long hair askew over an ill-fitting orange jail jumpsuit. She stared vacantly as she was led from the courtroom, clenching her arms to her chest as if fending off a blow.
Authorities barred the media from the courtroom, allowing reporters to watch only from a nearby room where a poor audio feed made it impossible to hear much of the proceeding.
Assistant District Attorney Kaylynn Willford gave state District Judge Belinda Hill a brief summary of the probable cause that led to Mrs. Yates' being charged with capital murder. But the prosecutor's account was inaudible and she later declined to speak to reporters.
Judge Hill declined a request by Ms. Yates' court-appointed attorney, Bob Scott, to impose a gag order in the case. Mr. Scott could not be reached for comment Friday.
But late Friday afternoon, prominent Houston defense attorney George Parnham visited Mrs. Yates in the jail along with her husband and other family members and emerged to tell reporters that he is now the attorney of record.
Houston police have said that Mrs. Yates readily told one of their officers what she had done when he arrived at her home Wednesday morning to answer a call for assistance. A police spokesman said the shocked officer later recounted how Mrs. Yates, wet and breathing heavily, first told him she'd killed her children and then led him to their bodies. Noah, the oldest, was still in the bathtub, and his four younger siblings were in a back bedroom, shrouded in a sheet.
After killing the children, authorities said, Mrs. Yates summoned police by phone and then called her husband, Russell Yates, a NASA computer engineer, to tell him he had better come home.
Mr. Yates told reporters on Thursday that he was frightened by her tone and then devastated when he asked if someone had been hurt and she replied, "Yes. ... The children. ... All of them."
Severe depression
Mr. Yates and other relatives of the woman said she had been suffering from severe depression for several months and had not responded to several brief hospitalizations, multiple combinations of anti-depressants and a round of an anti-psychotic drug.
Mr. Yates said his wife's emotional spiral mirrored a bout of depression in 1999 after the birth of their son Luke, a months-long ordeal in which she tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills and was briefly hospitalized.
He and her oldest brother, Houston resident Andrew Kennedy, said they believed her latest downturn was triggered by the death of her father in March after a long and agonizing illness.
"She'd gotten better for a while," Mr. Kennedy said. "But recently, you could kind of tell by looking at her. I'd say, 'How are you doing?' And she'd say, 'OK.' But I could sense that it wasn't OK. My sister, she didn't open up."
He said he and other family members had noticed "changes" in Mrs. Yates demeanor even before she began having children in 1994.
"I think it was a slow process," he said. "Both she and her husband, we talked to them a lot. But they were kind of - you know how some people don't like to ask for help? It was kind of that way. They didn't want to talk.
"I also think it may have been a big mistake with them taking her off one of the medications a week or two ago. Maybe it was just a misdiagnosis," he said. "I think she needed a combination of medication and some therapy, but that didn't happen."
Mr. Yates told reporters Thursday that his wife was taken off the anti-psychotic drug Haldol about two weeks ago, and had gone to a doctor on Monday to have dosages of several anti-depressant medications adjusted and to discuss starting therapy.
She now faces a capital murder charge for the "death...by drowning" of her two oldest sons, Noah and John.
Supportive family
She is being held without bond in the Harris County Jail's mental health wing, where she is under round-the-clock supervision.
Her Friday morning arraignment was postponed after Mr. Scott was appointed as public defender, and the hearing was reset for July 24.
Mr. Ownby, the prosecutor, told reporters after the brief morning hearing that additional charges may be added later, after authorities decide whether to pursue the death penalty. He said he expects the case will be presented to a grand jury in about 30 days.
Mr. Yates and other family members - including Mrs. Yates' mother Mrs. A.D. Kennedy and her brother Pat - declined to comment Friday afternoon when they came to the Harris County jail to visit Mrs. Yates.
Mr. Parnham told reporters after he and Mr. Yates met with Mrs. Yates that she was "doing as well as could be expected."
"The family is very supportive of the mother," he said. "This includes the father of the children ... they are unifying behind her."
He declined to discuss his legal defense strategy, telling reporters he would defer such comments until after the children's funeral.
Family members said the five children will be buried together Wednesday. Services will be at 10:30 a.m. at the Clear Lake Church of Christ.
Staff writer Laura Heinauer contributed to this report.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/400836_houstonfolo_23.html
c 2001 DallasNews.com
John Newton is the author of one of the most beloved songs of the Christian faith -- Amazing Grace. He was born in London July 24, 1725, to a pious Christian woman and the commander of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. In July of 1732, thirteen days before his seventh birthday, death took his saintly mother who had, since his third birthday, been his teacher and friend. He was left with only the memory of a godly mother and her Christian teaching.
When he was eleven, John went to sea and it was not long before he was wholly involved in the ungodly vices of seamen. As one author put it, "he became a dissipated sailor." He followed this ungodly path for many years, but finally, the memory of his mother brought him to himself. He remembered her Christian teaching and her godly life, and considered his ungodly lifestyle and his wretched life. The recollection of his mother prompted him to again seek Christ. He searched the slave ship for a Bible or some other book about Christ and found IMITATIONS OF CHRIST by Thomas à Kempis. This book sowed the seeds of his conversion. On May 10, 1748, when the ship nearly sunk in a violent storm he trusted Christ as his personal Savior. As a result of his mother’s influence a stream of boundless influence flowed forward throughout the world.
John Newton became a preacher of the Gospel. One of the people he lead to Christ was Claudius Birchman. Birchman went as a missionary to India. No doubt, no one has ever heard of Claudius Birchman. But, God mightily used a book this Englishman wrote, THE STAR IN THE EAST, to motive an American to become the pioneer of American foreign missions. The man this book motivated was Adoniram Judson, who became a missionary to Burma. Judson was the first American foreign missionary.
Newton also led Thomas Scott to Christ. Scott became a preacher and the author of the famous SCOTT’S COMMENTARY ON THE BIBLE. Rev. Scott pointed despondant attorney and harp player, William Cowper, to the Christ of the Bible and through reading Romans 3:25 Cowper was saved. He says, "I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fullness and completeness of His justification." Not long after his conversion he penned one of the great songs of the Faith, THERE IS A FOUNTAIN FILLED WITH BLOOD.
William Cowper was used of the Lord to write many great Christian hymns but he also wrote other poetry, including THE NEGRO'S COMPLAINT, an anti-slavery work, which had a mighty impact on a short and sickly little Englishman named William Wilberforce. He became a powerful English statesman and through his efforts slavery was ultimately abolished England. Wilberforce was a dedicated Christian as well. He wrote, A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE PREVAILING RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF PROFESSED CHRISTIANS...CONTRASTED WITH REAL CHRISTIANITY. This book was instrumental in bringing Legh Richmond to Christ. Rev. Legh Richmond is the author of the once popular Christian children’s book, THE DAIRYMAN’S DAUGHTER. Between 1813 and 1820 there were 22 editions of this book printed in America. The book was used of the Lord to bring about the salvation of thousands. Undergirding this chain of events stands the influence of John Newton’s godly mother.
__________________
(Source Information: Golden Links in the Chain that Connects Mother Home and Heaven edited by Mrs. J. P. Newman, © 1890, p. 56-57; Moody Monthly, August 1931, pp. 594, 595; The Dairyman’s Daughter by Rev. Legh Richmond, M.A., published in 1800’s by American Tract Society, pp. 11-12)
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William G. Boykin is not just big and strong, but to hear him speak, he is a man with a big, strong faith in God.
Boykin, commanding general of the U.S. Army's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, N.C., heads Special Forces, including Delta Force. That unit of soldiers goes into situations that most civilians can't even imagine. And they go in as warriors.
"We don't head into situations to keep the peace. We go in to win. I'm a warrior, not a peacekeeper," he said. "Delta Force goes in, strikes quick and gets out. Often it is a hostage situation."
Boykin said his Christian faith has sustained him and guided him throughout his military career.
"My mother raised me as a Christian. She is a true prayer warrior," he said. "Whenever I have a big decision to make, I call her and get her to pray."
Thirteen years ago when he was named to lead the Special Forces group, Boykins said, "I knew this would be a tremendous challenge, so you know what I immediately did ... I called my mother."
Boykin was one of the original officers in Delta Force. This group of soldiers has gone into war zones in Iran, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and other places of conflict. The events of their mission in Somalia have been dramatized in the motion picture, "Black Hawk Down."
Before every mission, Boykin said he prays with his men. "I always pray for God's blessing on these warriors, for his protective hand around them. Then we sing 'God Bless America.' God has been faithful and has held us in his hands."
Boykin told the FAITH participants that the way they are trained is like the concept of Special Forces training -- one person trains 100, who in turn can train 10,000. "It's a forced multiplier training. With you, with one prayer, you can call down 10,000 people. With us, with one A-team and a group of 5,000 untrained Northern Alliance warriors with heart, we can defeat the Taliban."
Of the current war on terrorism, Boykin said, "We have seen a godly man in the White House declare war on terrorism. We need warriors to fight and win this battle. I'm not just talking about our men and women in uniform. I'm talking about all of you in the sanctuary.
"Bin Laden is not the enemy. No mortal is the enemy. It's the enemy you can't see. It's a war against the forces of darkness. The battle won't be won with guns. It will be won on our knees."
He said, "Don't let go of this country. Stay on your knees and don't ever give up."
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879 – 1958)
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If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 – 1994)
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Dirty Dishes: (Submitted by Judy)
Dear Lord,
when I stand at my sink, with the dishpan full of hot, soapy water and a stack of dirty dishes, pots and pans staring me in the face, I sometimes feel so disheartened. What a miserable, lowly chore dishwashing seems to be. Then Your sweet Spirit envelopes me, and Your voice whispers to my heart.
Each plate was used by a member of my precious family. They each were at my table, talking and enjoying the meal. They are good eaters. They are healthy. They made it to the table with no assistance. Thank You for their strong bodies. Thank You that they are here and not lost, wandering, or running away. And be with the ones who are no longer at my table.
Thank You for once again supplying food to put on the plates. You have never let us go hungry. Thank You even for the very plates, pots and pans, even the stove, kitchen, and table we used for the meal. We have so much and take it all for granted so often. When You walked the earth, you didn’t even have a pillow on which to lay Your head. Even today, many people do not have what my family has. You have given us so much!
So now, as I face the dishes and the soapy water, I have the joy of Your Spirit. I thank You and praise You for these dirty dishes. And I thank You for revealing Yourself to me again.
Mother is always there when you need her. She helps, protects, listens, advises and nurtures physically and morally. She makes sure that her family is loved 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. At least that’s how I remember my mother, for the few precious years I was blessed to have her. But no words can describe the sacrifice she made out of love for me, her young son.
I was 19 years old, and I was taken to a concentration camp with a large group of other Jews. It was clear that we were destined to die. Suddenly my mother stepped in and traded places with me. And although it was more than 50 years ago, I will never forget her last words to me and her good-bye look. “I have lived long enough. You have to survive because you are so young,” she said. Most kids are born only once. I was given birth twice — by the same mother.
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