A day to honor mothers is well-deserved and important. Unfortunately, some women have mixed feelings about all the attention. They’re not used to spending much time thinking about themselves. Some mothers feel discouraged when they hear praise poured out about idealized motherhood. But, who doesn’t fall short of the ideal? Others are working to repair relations with their own mothers. And some women, though skilled nurturers, know a deep longing for motherhood that doesn’t seem to go away.
If motherhood didn’t matter so much, it wouldn’t merit such feelings of the heart. Only because motherhood is a sacred responsibility of boundless importance does it engender such depth of feeling.
Motherhood is not a checklist of attributes. It’s a description of a person who loves another more than life itself. No two mothers are just alike. Not a single one is expected to be perfect—or close to it. Mothers with foresight know they do their best simply by doing a little better every day.
Mothers nurture and love; they create homes of warmth and safety; they cultivate strengths and see potential. “A mother is the first and most important teacher in a child’s life.”[i]
No one can adequately take a mother’s place. She willingly walks into the valley of the shadow of death as she gives life. And then she walks alongside her children, sustaining them until they venture on their own. Even then, her heart follows close behind and skips a beat every time she hears their footsteps—every time their thoughts turn to home.
Program #3950
[i] Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen, The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships with God and Family (1994), 294.