When I was growing up, I would often sit by the coffee pot early in the morning and watch it brew. I grew to love bringing a first cup of coffee to my mother while she lay in bed. She worked as a second-shift nurse, so she arrived home late and slept in a bit before taking on the rigors of the day. One Mother’s Day I decided I would be the one not only to deliver the coffee, but to make it. Not knowing what I was doing, I kept scooping coffee into the filter until the basket was completely full of grounds. That should be sufficient, I thought. That morning, I lovingly brought a cup of tar to my mother’s waiting hands.
And what did she do? Did she see it as a teachable moment, a chance to correct me or tutor me on a better way to brew a pot that wouldn’t offend the family — or any guests, if I were ever allowed to make coffee again?
No. She smiled, held her nose, took a deep breath, and then took a deep, daring swallow. She swept the grounds from her teeth and smiled from ear to ear.
Such are the gifts of children to a parent. And such is the adoration of a parent who receives that kind of gift.
The poet Billy Collins captured it wonderfully in his poem “The Lanyard.” The poem tells of a boy making a simple lanyard at camp as a gift for his mother — a useless, worthless thing woven out of boredom. Yet when he gave it to her, he was as sure as a boy could be that this imperfect gift would be enough to make them even. What a remarkable understanding of how a mother’s love transcends the material value of what she receives.
These are the gifts that only mothers truly love — because a mother understands the imperfections and still embraces what is at the heart of them. But what happens when life’s circumstances become more severe? What happens when times are more perilous? Where is a mother’s love then?
My friend Sarah was a schoolteacher for many years in Wake County. She taught elementary school, and was saddened one day to see that one of her former students from about twenty years previous was on the evening news. He’d been arrested for murder. Sarah was one of those merciful, tenderhearted people by nature. Once, she found blankets on sale at Rose’s for five dollars each, bought the entire store out, and then drove down Hillsborough Street handing them out to the homeless who lived in plain sight along those streets. But this man was on her heart in a personal way, at a deeper level still.
She wondered whether there was anyone who would go visit this man in these circumstances. Would there be any family or friend present to him in this time of great tribulation? She applied to visit him in prison, he accepted, and she sat down with him. In the course of that first reunion she realized he was truly without anyone. His family had abandoned him. And so she set up a routine of regular visits. Together they talked about the choices that had brought him to this point. She invited him to pray. When his death sentence was handed down, she committed to remain with him through the long wait for that sentence to be carried out, continuing to offer her time and her presence. Over the course of that relationship, she invited him to follow Jesus — and he became a Christian.
When the time came for his sentence to be carried out, of all the people who knew him, of all who could claim him as family or flesh and blood, Sarah was the one he wanted in the gallery for his last minutes and his last breath. A life only a mother could love — in this case, not a life biologically connected, but spiritually and mercifully so.
So it is with God. We who are children of God should honor our God today as we honor the mothers who bear that same love to us. Whether related to us or not, there are women in our lives who understand the great joy as well as the great tribulation of raising the next generation. It is right to turn our attention to them today and remember that this is a world that only a mother could really love.
Sometimes it brings forth small and simple gifts. As often as not, it also brings forth great pain. And yet we hear today in these words from Paul in Romans the great good news that stretches over it all: “This is how we know what love is — that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Grace and Peace,