{source}<iframe style=”float: right; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #C0C0C0; padding: 2px; margin: 10px; -moz-border-radius: 3px; -khtml-border-radius: 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; border-radius: 3px;” width=”400″ height=”225″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/HB3xM93rXbY?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>{/source}A company recently placed a classified ad for a Director of Operations position and posted it online and in newspapers. Though 2.7 million saw the ad, only 24 people inquired. The interviews were conducted via webcam, where the interviewer details the requirements and benefits:
1. 135+ hours each week,
2. No breaks,
3. Preferred degrees: Medicine/ finance/ culinary arts,
4. No vacations/ workload increases during the holidays,
5. No pay.
The applicants responded to this job with adjectives such as “insane” and “inhumane.” The interviewer then shared that there are billions who currently hold this position: Moms.
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. In fact, it will be the 100th Mother’s Day in our nation’s history. The holiday began with Anna Jarvis as a way to remember her own mother, the wife of a Methodist minister in Grafton, West Virginia. Her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, had created “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” to help women care properly for their children. After the Civil War, she organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers met with Union and Confederate veterans to encourage reconciliation.
Ann Reeves Jarvis died in 1905. Two years later, her daughter held a memorial service for her on the second Sunday in May, the day she had died. The church was filled with 500 carnations, her mother’s favorite flower.
Anna Jarvis was so moved by the service that she started a letter-writing campaign to establish a formal holiday honoring mothers. In 1910, West Virginia officially recognized “Mother’s Day.” In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the law making Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May, a national holiday.
Ironically, the day quickly became too commercialized for its founder’s taste. Anna Jarvis spent her latter years trying to remove the holiday from the American calendar, and spent most of her personal wealth on legal fees fighting against profiteers who used Mother’s Day to sell their goods.
Motherhood has never been more challenging, or more significant. Our children face temptations unknown to any previous generation, but a mother’s influence is still powerful. For instance, Abraham Lincoln was convinced that “no man is poor who has a godly mother.”
In terms of influence, every day is Mother’s Day. Children are our only eternal possession. These facts make motherhood the highest calling and greatest responsibility. If you’re a mother, will you seek God’s strength today? If you’re not, will you encourage someone who is?
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