Remember Mother’s Day

I’m always amazed when I look into history to find out how things originated. Yeah, I’m a nerd like that.   So many holidays seem to originate of some religious-worship-god reason and then Christianity created some twist on the day to change the focus towards “the church” or Jesus.  Often times there’s no real reason why the holiday falls on the day that it does.  Mother’s day again was no exception.  You can find out more details here: http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/

What interesting as well about all of this is that the general public is usually unaware why a day like this exists.  God in the Old Testament would tell the people to build these little reminder markers (piles of stones) and festivals throughout the year to be a reminder of the awesome things God did for them, even the stipulations and commandments were to be reminders of God’s goodness.

God knew something about mankind.  We have the amazing ability to forget. Deuteronomy 6:12 “be careful not to forget the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, the place of slavery.”  We forget the amazing things that God does for us last week and live this week as though there was not this amazing working on God in our lives.

We also live in a culture today that doesn’t seem for the most part to ask why things are the way they are.  We just go with it.  In the Old Testament, parents would constantly be teaching their children as the spent the whole day with them (Deuteronomy 6:6-7  “These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind,  7 and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the way, as you lie down, and as you get up”).  And so it was natural for the children to ask questions, and they still do but we make a joke about how kids constantly say “why, why, why…” when they are toddlers: (Deuteronomy 6:20-21  “When your children ask you later on, ‘What are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that the LORD our God commanded you?’  21 you must say to them, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way’”).

So perhaps we should not only remember our mother on mother’s day, but perhaps gain a better glimpse into God’s use of mother’s throughout history to change how we get to live and the values that we should embrace. Just a thought that I need to learn myself.