One Mother’s Day our young sons announced, “Your Mother’s Day present is that we are going to let you finish your lunch.” It was a fitting gift, for in those days I rarely finished a meal. Kids jumping on chairs, spilling drinks, and squabbling left me wanting to hire Emily Post . . . better yet, a bouncer.  

Raising four sons was costly. When the boys were young, my husband and one of his little helpers broke a jar at the grocery store. While an employee cleaned the spaghetti sauce off the floor, my husband said, “I’d apologize for the unpaid sauce, but I’ve spent over $80,000 here, so I’m hardly a liability to your business.” 

I should have known I was in way over my head when we brought our youngest son home after adopting him at the age of eighteen months. We opened the suitcase his foster family had packed. On top of his clothing was a book entitled The Strong-Willed Child.  The attached note said, “Read this book right away. You’re going to need it.” We tease him about arriving with a sympathy note from his foster family.

When I was in the thick of raising children, what I really wanted for Mother’s Day was respect. During a busy week, when our dinners were admittedly scrappy, one of our sons made this speech: “We kids have been discussing this and need to sit you down for a serious talk. You used to be a pretty good cook, but your cooking skills have gone downhill lately.” That same son once told me, “I can hardly talk with you on a mature level anymore.”  

The indignities of motherhood are not the worst of it. The simple fact is that our children, with one flick of the wrist behind the steering wheel or a split second’s succumbing to peer pressure, can take our maternal hearts hostage for a decade (or a lifetime). Yet, a godly mother “laughs at the time to come”(Proverbs 31:25) because her heart trusts her God and entrusts her beloved children to God.

Laughing with you this Mother’s Day.