It has been an interesting Mother’s Day. In 15 years, I have never had to miss a Sunday of preaching because I became sick at the last minute. Today was a first… The stomach virus hit late yesterday evening. I am just now thinking I might be able to join the living again. My sudden illness did not hinder my boys in honoring their mother. They went to early service this morning and arrived home an hour ahead of their mother to prepare an extremely nice candlelight meal. While I lay in bed, they put everything together flawlessly. What a blessing to have three great kids.

Mother’s Day used to make me sad every year. I do miss my mother everyday, but recently I learned about the origin of Mother’s Day. That totally changed my outlook. The holiday was born out of one woman’s desire to honor her mother’s life of sacrifice and grace.

Born in 1864 in Grafton, West Virginia, Anna Jarvis witnessed the aftermath of the Civil War through a child’s eyes. Her mother, Anna Maria Reeves-Jarvis, had spent the war organizing women to nurse wounded soldiers from both the North and South, and generally attempting to hold her border-state community together. After the war, Anna Maria started “Mothers’ Friendship Days” to reconcile families that had been divided by the conflict.

She gave up her dreams of college in order to tend to an older husband and four children. She bore the loss of seven other children with grace. She taught Sunday school for 20 years and stayed active in benevolent work.

Anna Maria’s death in 1905 devastated her daughter. Two years later, Anna got the idea to found a holiday remembering her mother, and all mothers, whom she felt could never be thanked enough.

Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 in Grafton (where Anna grew up) and Philadelphia (where she lived as an adult). Later, in a resolution passed May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress officially established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day…

And now you know the rest of the story…