Nine years old and oh, so proud. Proud of the gift I had just bought for my mom for Mother's Day, that is. I picked it out myself. I paid for it with my own allowance. And I ruined it all by myself.
It was a two-carnation corsage. With a plastic bumblebee. That bumblebee was really cool. I was pushing the speed limit on my bicycle with the white florist box perched on my handlebars. Until I hit a bump and it went flying. I ran over my Mother's Day present. The flowers were crushed. So was I.
Maybe that's why I love the idea of a crushproof Mother's Day gift. And there is one. It might be the greatest gift Mom could ever receive. And it's intimately tied to an amazing gift a Mom can give her son or daughter. I know. If it weren't for those two gifts, the wife I've loved all these years might never have been born.
Bill was the apple of his mother's eye. He had a great job, a good income - and an insatiable appetite for alcohol. From the time he was nine years old, he entertained the men at the local store by lapping booze from a saucer like a kitten.
By the time Bill was in his 20s, his drinking cost him his job, his dignity and almost some people he loved. After drinking heavily one night, he returned home, flew into a rage and chased his sisters with a butcher knife. Later, his drinking - and ultimately even cocaine use - took him to jail and then prison. Hopeless.
Except for the gift his mother gave him. Her relentless prayer for him.
In 1907, Bill's mama wrote this on the back of a picture of him, dressed so fashionably at the time: "Will, O dear Will - When will you cease from your wandering ways and return to Jesus Christ? You may see this long after I am gone from this earth, but may you know that your mother always prayed for you."
One night those prayers reached all the way to her "Billy Boy," walking down Chicago's South State Street, his feet protected only by shoe soles tied on with rags. He was heading for Lake Michigan to end his wasted life. Then he heard the music - a hymn he remembered from his childhood. It was coming from a rescue mission. And it drew him inside. There a mission worker reached out to him with these words from the Bible: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
On the night Bill planned to end his life, he gave his life to Jesus. And he would say, from that day on, "I wasn't a reformed man - I was a transformed man." He spent the rest of his life traveling this country, telling people about the Rescuer of "hopeless" lives. Living in a trailer, his "Little Church on Wheels" - with John 3:16 emblazoned boldly on the side.
His Mama lived to see the miracle she prayed for. She saw his transformed life for ten wonderful years before she went Home. She gave her son the gift of her never-give-up praying. And he gave her the greatest gift of all - a child who loved and lived for her Savior.
Without those gifts, my wife would not be here. Because Bill - that young man saved by Jesus only minutes before he planned to die - was her grandfather. Who later fathered a daughter who loved and served Jesus. Who birthed the baby who has been the love of my life all these years...who loves and serves Jesus.
Because a mother would not give up praying for her wandering child. As a result, she experienced the miracle a widowed mother long ago experienced at the funeral of her only son. Jesus touched that coffin and commanded her dead boy to "get up!" "The dead man sat up...and Jesus gave him back to his mother" (Luke 7:14, 15). Jesus is still the Savior who gives back a lost son or daughter to a mother who loves them. Who believes, as she pours out her heart in prayer for her prodigal, that "we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:9).
There is no greater gift a mother can give her children than to pray them to the foot of Jesus' cross. There is no greater gift a child can give a mother than to live their life for Jesus. For "I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children are following the truth" (3 John 4).
I have living proof of the power of those gifts. My wife is sitting next to me. I just wished my wife, "Happy Mother's Day."
| Maybe you're the son or daughter of a praying mother, but you've not been following her Jesus. Or maybe you're a mother who really needs the hope only Jesus can give. He waits with open arms to welcome you home - to the love you were made for. Please - stop by our website, YoursForLife.net. It's there to point the way home. |