Thank Heaven for Mothers
Morning brothers and sisters. It's good to be with you all on this lovely spring day. I'm grateful to be able to speak to you today on Mother's Day. My own mom showed up and conveniently made this a lot harder for me. Hi mom. I'm kind of really nervous to be speaking on the subject of Mother's Day as a male, in a singles congregation. This is kind of terrifying. I really don't know what I can say necessarily on this subject. Thankfully I have I wonderful mother of my own, five amazing sisters, who are mothers and one to soon join the ranks of motherhood, an amazing sister-in-law, and grandmother who I was able to turn to for advice and counsel on this. I hope you'll bear with my male perspective.
In 2001 Sister Sheri Dew gave a talk entitled "Are We Not All Mothers" and in her talk she stated:
"the work of women in the Lord’s kingdom is magnificent and holy. I repeat: We are all mothers in Israel, and our calling is to love and help lead the rising generation through the dangerous streets of mortality.
Few of us will reach our potential without the nurturing of both the mother who bore us and the mothers who bear with us."
I really love that. We are all mothers in Israel. She was addressing a body of women at the time, but I think that can certainly apply to the brethren as well. I think it's important for all of us to nurture the qualities of motherhood in our own lives. I know I've been taught a lot of those values and aspects in my own life through the examples of my sisters.
My thoughts are kind of all over the place I'll admit. I have so many different thoughts. I want to share them with you and I hope they tie together in the end. I'd like to acknowledge first of all that this is a very hard day for many people. It's not easy to see everyone praising almost worshiping mothers, when perhaps you might be hiding in your heart a secret sadness that you're not a mother or your not a father, or perhaps you've lost your mother, or you didn't have that ideal LDS happy family upbringing. I want to acknowledge that, and I hope that you're aware of that in your heart as well and keep a part of your heart open and empathetic to those who might be suffering on a day like this. It's kind of one of those days like Valentine's Day where a lot of people tend to not actually enjoy it that much.
I think it's also important, much like Easter and Christmas, we don't just celebrate Christ on Easter and Christmas, by all means we should not just celebrate our mothers on Mother's Day. My brother, who is a great example in my life, said, "I figure if my wife doesn't feel special except for Mother's Day, I've not done my job." He's a good man. Mark Twain said, "What would men be without women? Scarce, sir. Mighty scarce." There's a Chinese proverb that states that women hold up half the sky. I love that. And the Lord himself through his prophets has declared, "Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord."
There's something beautiful in that. I guess we're celebrating motherhood in many ways, but I think we're celebrating womanhood more particularly. There're some great women here today and I'm glad to be counted among their numbers, well, I'm not a woman, but as someone who can be here with them.
The American novelist and non-fiction writer Anne Lamott wrote:
""The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat. I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, and my own best friends’ mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all"
And one of my sisters gave me this great quote that I'd like to share as well:
"Good mothers are made through difficult self-work and a lot of self-awareness, not magically endowed by possession of a functioning uterus. Becoming a selfless, loving human doesn't happen magically through birth. It's hard work and it takes a village. And all the relationships you have before motherhood are good practice because loving another person is hard whether or not you share any DNA."
It is hard. Loving other people can be very hard. Being a mother is not an easy thing I imagine. We talk a lot about the love of mothers, the love of parents, in many ways like we talk of the love of Christ, the love of our Heavenly Father, almost to the point that they love us so much that it seems like it's easy for them to love us and that it just comes naturally to them. I don't necessarily think it's always easy for Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ to love us. Watching my own parents, and my siblings raising their own children, I certainly know it's not always easy to love your children and that they definitely struggle with that at times. It's work. And they work for it and they put in that work both our parents, our mothers, as well as our Father in Heaven and our Savior.
Sister Sheri Dew also in her talk asked the question"
"Have you ever wondered why prophets have taught the doctrine of motherhood—and it is doctrine—again and again? I have. I have thought long and hard about the work of women of God. And I have wrestled with what the doctrine of motherhood means for all of us. This issue has driven me to my knees, to the scriptures, and to the temple—all of which teach an ennobling doctrine regarding our most crucial role as women."
She goes on to express an important point that "Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us."
Obviously I don't think a lot of us are literal mothers and fathers here, and I think sometimes we get caught up in the notion that you have to have kids to be a mother or a father. She teaches us here that that's not true, that those qualities are inherent in (women), something all of us, even you guys, need to foster in our lives. To reach out and bless the lives of other people around us.
I love the many examples that Lauren mentioned of great mothers that we have in the scriptures, in our own lives, the people that surround us.
I love what Sheri Dew mentioned here that "This issue has driven (her) to (her) knees, to the scriptures, and to the temple—all of which teach an ennobling doctrine regarding our most crucial role as women." I'm very much aware that this is a tough issue for some people, the role of being a mother, when to be a mother, the fact that life for whatever reason has not chosen you to be a mother, or when it will happen, do I even want it to happen, career, motherhood, all that great stuff that's going on around in the world. It doesn't make it easier that the scriptures are written by men. The scriptures come from the perspective of men. It doesn't help necessarily perhaps that the prophets and apostles are all men. I don't really know what all that means, but I love that Sister Dew here took this issue to her knees, she took it to the scriptures, she took it to the temple. And that's the important doctrine I think, that whenever we're dealing with any kind of issue, particularly issues relating to the gospel, the doctrines of the Church, that we take it to the Lord. Yes, by all means do our research in the world and learn what people are exploring, discovering. This is a great age to be a woman. It's probably the best age to be a woman, but yet, it continues to be hard to be a woman. Satan is very much aware of the power of women and he has done his very best through the entire history of this planet to suppress a half of the children of God, and he's sadly been very successful. Through the sons of God he's done a lot of unfortunate work in suppressing the daughters of God. And I think it's important to remember that women hold up half of the sky. So Satan is very much aware of the power of women. And I think our Father in Heaven and our Mother in Heaven are very much aware of that power and they will teach us that power if we come to them in humility, on our knees, through prayer, if we seek them through the temple, through the scriptures there are things we can learn about the divine nature of both women and men in time and in eternity.
Brothers and Sisters, I would like to close with reading from a, it's an odd hymn. I like it though. "Oh My Father". It talks about our Father in Heaven, obviously. It says:
In the heav'ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me I've a mother there.
When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
In your royal courts on high?
Then, at length, when I've completed
All (the work) you sent me forth to do,
-and the "you" there is plural, the work that both Father and Mother sent me forth to do-
With your mutual approbation -mutual, again, meaning both of them-
Let me come and dwell with you. -again, meaning both of them-
Brothers and Sisters I testify to you that this Church is true. I testify to you that this work is glorious. That our parents, our Heavenly Parents, sent us forth here so that we can achieve our great potential as their children, as sons and daughters of God. Our Father in Heaven would not be the man He is without our Mother in Heaven. That is true. That is very very true. I testify of their love for us. I testify of our Savior Jesus Christ and of his love for us, and that there is no way that we can become like our Parents in Heaven, except through our Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I recommend Him to you. He is very loving. He will heal your wounds, whatever they may be. He loves you and will lead you back to our eternal heavenly home. And I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
