May 11, 2014 - Sunday

Start Time: 6:25 A.M.

End Time: 7:37 A.M.

Title: Praise the Lord for our Mothers!

Scripture: Ps 107:1 & Ps 34:1 – 3

God’s Message / God’s Promise / God’s Commands:

→ Ps 107 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.”  Today let us praise and give Him the glory that He deserves.  Allow every part of our bodies to give the worship, our God only deserves.  Do not stop ourselves from raising our hands, using our feet, speaking from our mother the wonders and goodness of our Lord and let our lips just speak thanksgiving to our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord has been very good to me this week.  He has done such amazing and great things in my life that I was very overwhelmed with joy and happiness.  It stated Tuesday of this week.  The joy was just unspeakable.  I find myself thanking Him over and over again until no words come out anymore (because I’ve used it all up and I only have limited vocabulary heheehe).  At times, I will get zone out of my work because I will remember His goodness and I thank Him again then after doing so, I’ll realize that I have already thanked Him for it.  The experience was very overpowering.  So I said to the Lord that I want to share about “Praise” this Sunday.  But then it’s mother’s day…my sharing should speak about mothers since it is the day of honoring the mothers.  So I was confused and disappointed.  I wanted to talk about praise but I have to talk about mothers… I was torn in between.  I was thinking deeply and struggling with this when I decided to break off and take a bath first (this happened yesterday).  The Lord knew my dilemma and while taking a bath, He asked me, “Why can’t you praise me when it’s mothers day?”  I was stunned, “Why can’t I?” I asked myself.  And I had no answer instead I realized that all the more reason to Praise God because it’s mother’s day!  Mothers come from God in the first place and so they are His blessing to us so they should be enough reason to Praise Him.  So I left the bathroom, feeling happy knowing that I already know what to share today.

When I started studying for the sharing today, I decided to remember my mother.  I mean, how else can I share about mothers, but to reflect on my own mother.  So I went back in time and try to remember all my memories with her to try to answer the question, what is it really mean to be a mother.  You see I only spent 12 short years with her and 5 years of that, my mother was battling cancer and those were the 5 years of my life, when I’m starting to have a mind of my own.  So as you can see, I don’t have much to tell because the years when I am able to remember and understand, my mother was already sick and unable to take care for me. Don’t get me wrong, I can remember some great moments I have with my mother but it was too few to help in creating my sermon for today.  So I turn back to God and He asked me, “What is the first thing that comes to your mind when I say mother?” I thought for a quick moment and said “nurturing”  Mothers are nurturing.  They always take care of their kids no matter what.  Then God replied, “Start from there.”  So I went online and searched the word “nurture”.  Nurture means “to care for and encourage the growth and development of”.

So nurture is not just about caring, it also encourages our growth and development.  So I went ahead with that definition and based my sermon for today, all glory to God for that. 

1)     To care for..

In caring for their children, we will find that mothers also show their love, provision, and comfort as part of caring for them. So I went back to my mother and one thing that I can never forget about her is that she is a giver.  I may not have received it from her, not because she doesn’t love me but because I spend all my time with my father more so I really didn’t give her the chance to share her love for me,  but I saw how she cared for my cousins, my siblings, and her brothers and sisters.  I remember when my relatives would come over to ask help and my mother would readily give whatever she had that she can give.  Even the things we have at home or my toys, she would give them to my cousins even if I’m still playing them.  So I asked God, Lord if my mother was such a giver, how come I didn’t experience it?  I saw her giving to others, I saw her love to others, I saw her goodness to others, but I don’t remember her doing it to me…Then I realized that maybe it was because I was always set apart from her because she was sick.

My sister told me that mom loved us all so much and she wants us to experience an abundant life that’s why she gives.  She remembered that when they asked for some thing, like maybe chocolates or ice cream, my father, the stingy that he is (he’s Chinese), would never give in to their request.  He will never give them money to buy what they want but my mother would come silently to our cash register in our store in the marketplace and got the money secretly for them.  All she ever wanted is for us to feel that we can have everything we want and then I realized, I got everything I wanted.  I was loved by my father so much that I acted like I was a princess in our home.  So even if my mother didn’t get the love I gave to my father, maybe she allowed it for 2 reasons: 1) she sick and cannot take care of me that much and 2) I got to live the life she wanted for me so she is willing to sacrifice and let me see her as the “kontrabida” because I get all the love that she wants me to have.

What a sacrifice right?  As I thought of these things, I felt so blessed and I realized that the mother’s love is so strong.  It is unconditional and sacrificial.  Then it hit me, this kind of love is only possible because God made it possible.  My mother was able to love me with that kind of love because God first love her with that kind of love.  She was able to mirror that love because she herself got that from the Lord.  And the Lord is so similar, His love is sacrifice that He gave up Jesus so that we get save!  That there is a mother’s love!  And I can’t help but praise the Lord more because of my mother!

2)    Encourage growth and development

In doing this, we find the mother’s understanding, gentleness, patience, teaching and their desire to give us the best of everything. 

My mother may not be a professional but she was a teacher by nature.  I remember times when she was the only one who was able to make me understand the lesson after many countless tries of my siblings to teach me failed.  I remember I was like grade 1, my brother was so mad at me and I was able to see the veins showing on his neck for trying to scream at me because no matter how many times he taught me, I cannot get it into my head that 1-1 is equal to 0. Whenever he asked me 1-1, I always reply back 1 and it drove him crazy until he walked out on me so I was left crying and thinking that I was so stupid.  I was drawing this big “0” on my pad paper and crying very hard when my mother saw me.  She immediately asked someone to buy one of my favorite dish (it’s called, “Go Ma Ki”, and have it prepared in a bowl.  She came to me, had me ate the food then started teaching me the math lesson and you know what, I never ever forget that 1-1 is 0 from then on. 

Another time was when I was studying ballet.  My mother wants me the best and so she enrolled me to a ballet class because maybe she saw that im getting fatter and fatter with all the attention given to me.  We were all preparing for our recital but what I did was, I skipped practice every Saturday.  Instead of going to class, me and my cousin would go out and eat and roam around the mall (the school was renting a place inside the mall).  So the school called up my mom to know if im still joining the recital and that’s how she found out what I did.  When we arrived home, it was hell.  I mean, my brother and sister were all shouting and mad at me.  I was taking all their anger in but when they were done, my mother took me inside the room and she said, “ga, you will never keep anything bad that you do from me, because God will always tell me about it.”  That day I learned 2 things: 1) My mother is close with God and 2) I can’t keep any secrets from her so it scared me to do wrong because I know that my mother would always found out.

What my mother did in those 2 examples were priceless for me.  She showed her gentleness, understanding and patience even when everybody else was mad and screaming for what I did wrong… And I know that those characters, the caring and the encouragement for my growth and development that she showed me are the same characters that God has for us today.  He nurtures us every day.  Then I realized that in those 12 years I had with my mother, her actions towards me showed what I needed the most, I saw Jesus in her actions.

Remembering these moments yesterday, taught me some of the greatest life’s lessons: 1) that the goodness we show to others when they did wrong will always be remembered and will always have greater influence than the things we say to them when we are mad at them 2) that we ought to represent God to others, whether we are a mom, a daughter, a father, a boss, an employee…whatever we are here on earth, we ought to represent God’s character to others.

So this mother’s day, let us honor our mothers but let us not forget to praise and give thanks to our God who gave our mothers to us.    Just like David who said in Ps. 34, I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will glory in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.  Because of our mothers, let us do the same today.