What a blessing it is to speak to you on Mother’s Day. But what a greater blessing it has been for me to have been raised by a mother who is worth a celebrating, for my mother is a woman of Christ; her actions and conduct testify of her belief in the Redeemer. She is exactly the kind of woman whom the Lord needs in the battle between good and evil. While my life does not yet reflect her total devotion to the Savior, I am inspired by her example, and resultantly, I want to more completely honor and obey by covenants, and by so doing, honor both my mother and my Savior.
So on this day that has been set aside to honor my mother, my question to myself has been: what can I do to honor her? This has been the question of the week, and if you don’t mind, I would like to disclose my conclusions to you and use them as the basis of my talk. I believe that that there are three ways in which we can honor our mothers: first, by understanding her divine and eternal role as our mother; second, by showing our gratitude and love to her; and finally and most importantly, by keeping our covenants.
In 1935, the First Presidency issued a message on the divinity of motherhood that read: “Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.”
Can those of us who have experienced the love of a good mother consider her to be anything less than angelic?! It is little wonder then that the First Presidency claimed her service to be “next to the angels.”
We can also not overlook the importance of motherhood, as it is stated in this passage, which, again, reads that “[Motherhood] is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.”
Of this, Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “God trusts women so much that He lets them bear and care for His spirit children.”
Furthermore, President Brigham Young said, “When I reflect upon the duties and responsibilities devolving upon our mothers and sisters, and the influence they wield, I look upon them as the mainspring and soul of our being here.”
And finally, Elder Maxwell once said, "When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside of telestial time."
My purpose in reading these quotes is with the hope that you can see the prophets have testified and continue to testify of the divine role of the mother. We know God’s purposes require her committed role.
But I want you to find your own personal application. I think we should ask ourselves this question: How has my mother blessed my life? I realize that can be hard for us at this point in our lives; most of us are just coming out of a stage where our relationship with our parents could best be described as “adversarial.”
But please look beyond that and honestly ask yourself, how has my mother blessed my life? I have thought about that this week, and there are many, many ways in which my mother has blessed my life. But there is no greater blessing that I have received from her than her diligence in teaching me gospel truths. Her faith, her patience, her devotion put me in a place where I could hear the Spirit of God testify to me of the divine principles of the Gospel. And now, I can say independent of my mother or any other person that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church on earth today and that Jesus Christ is my Savior. What a blessing that knowledge is in my life!
Might I again invite you to spend some time on this day—Mother’s Day—to reflect upon how your mother has blessed your life. In so doing, I promise you that you will have an increased feeling of gratitude toward your mother. Annette Paxman Bowen writing in the Ensign noted, “For most [mothers], it will take years of practice before our lives bear resemblance to Proverbs 31:28: ‘Her children arise up, and call her blessed’.”
Often the result of a woman’s children not rising up and calling her blessed is not because of the woman’s failure as a mother; rather, it is because of the child’s failure to recognize the mother’s effect on his life.
Do not be caught in this trap! President David O. McKay once said, “The greatest sin of this generation is ingratitude!”
I hope that we will not be found guilty of being ungrateful to our mothers! If you are moved with gratitude toward your mother, might I suggest you do something more than just feel it—may you show it.
Sister Bowen shared this story: “Last week, my youngest child came into my workroom and asked, ‘Hey, Mom, have you checked the kitchen counter yet?’ I hadn’t, but I immediately arose to go see what I might find. There by the sink, in a kindergarten scrawl, accompanying a picture of a bear on a skateboard, were these words: “Mom, I love you.” Those words made my day. No mother can hear them enough.”
My suggestion to you would be to send your mother a letter, thanking her for all the tiring sacrifices she made to raise you, for all the love she always showed, and let her know how grateful you are to be her son or daughter. If you do, I can promise you that it will be a letter that she will always treasure.
Finally, the best way to show your gratitude is to keep your covenants.
Know that this will give any righteous parent great joy; it was the apostle John who wrote: “I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in truth.” Remember that it is by obedience to our covenants that we qualify to reside with our parents throughout eternity. But more importantly, keeping our covenants shows respect for our mother’s teachings, or as President Thomas S. Monson put it: “One certain way each can demonstrate genuine love for mother is to live the truths mother so patiently taught.” Conversely, President Monson also taught that “Whenever we fall, whenever we do less than we ought, in a very real way we forget mother.”
Elder Russell M. Nelson related a poignant story of the consequences of forgetting our mother’s teachings:
When I was a young university student, one of my classmates urgently pleaded with a group of us—his Latter-day Saint friends—to donate blood for his mother, who was bleeding profusely. We went directly to the hospital to have our blood typed and tested. I’ll never forget our shock when told that one of the prospective donors was unfit because of a positive blood test for a venereal disease. That infected blood was his own! Fortunately, his mother survived, but I’ll never forget his lingering sorrow. He bore the burden of knowing that his personal immorality had disqualified him from giving needed aid to his mother, and he had added to her grief. I learned a great lesson: if one dishonors the commandments of God, one dishonors mother, and if one dishonors mother, one dishonors the commandments of God.”
Similarly, President Monson related the following story about a young army man:
One night at a champagne supper, when many were becoming intoxicated, someone in jest called for a toast from this young man. Colonel Higginson said that he arose, pale but with perfect self-control, and declared: “Gentlemen, I will give you a toast which you may drink as you will, but which I will drink in water. The toast that I have to give is, ‘Our mothers.’
Instantly a strange spell seemed to come over all the tipsy men. They drank the toast in silence. There was no more laughter, no more song, and one by one they left the room. The lamp of memory had begun to burn, and the name of Mother touched every man’s heart.
President Monson sums up with these words: “Men turn from evil and yield to their better natures when mother is remembered.” As you know, a few moments ago, we partook of the sacrament and covenanted with our Heavenly Father that we will always remember Jesus Christ. The importance of remembering Christ is that it is when we are awakened to His mercy and His love, temptation becomes easier to resist and we are strengthened. It is interesting then that the memory of a mother can have the same power of dispelling temptation as remembering Christ has. The reason for this is simple, for if a mother raises her children in righteousness, she directs their lives toward Christ.
One of the greatest lessons I learned from my mother is what it is like to be loved, for I know she loves me. I am not a parent, so I cannot comprehend perfectly a parent’s love, but it is real and it is deep. I know my mother has prayed and fasted on my behalf, and her prayers have been answered, and God has blessed my life because of her pleadings. And my understanding of how much my mother loves me has helped me, in a small way, to better understand the love my Heavenly Father must have had for me to send down his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me. And how much Jesus Christ loved me—enough to die for me.
Their love is best summed up, I believe, in these two scriptures. First, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” And secondly, John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
How grateful I am for the love of a kind Heavenly Father who loved me enough to send His Son; and how grateful I am for the Savior who gave his life because He loved me. And how grateful I am that I have had the chance and continue to have the chance to have my sins blotted out through the blood of The Lamb.
Therefore, how grateful I am for a mother who introduced me to my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and opened the door to the testimony born of the Spirit which I have and would now like to bear to you: I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and that he lives, and that Christ and our Father in Heaven appeared to Joseph Smith and called him to be a prophet, and through him, they restored God’s church and priesthood to the earth. I also know that this church is led by a living prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, and how blessed I feel to hear the words of President Hinckley and the other men whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators, and truly, they are such. What a great blessing it is to be a member of this church, and this I say in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
