By Robert Griffin

Seeing Mother’s Day is Sunday, I thought it would be the best subject to write about this week.

Indeed, Mother’s Day has become almost as important as Christmas and Easter in many churches. This is certainly true at my church, Highland Baptist. Every year, we look forward to great attendance and a wonderful celebration on Mother’s Day.

The Bible, the Word of God, has a lot to say about family, marriage, children, parenting, and especially, mothers. Scripture is replete with marvelous examples of godly mothers. However, there are several biblical cases of mothers whose negative example is to be avoided.

Perhaps the finest and most popular passage for Mother’s Day is found in Proverbs 31:10-31. This text begins with the question, “Who can find a virtuous woman?” Therefore, many entitle this passage appropriately, “The Virtuous Woman.” Nevertheless, the passage is well-suited to describe a good, godly mother.

It is significant that this text is found in Proverbs. Of all the books of the Bible, Proverbs is among the best known, especially in the Old Testament.

Furthermore, Proverbs is the great wisdom book of the Bible and was written by the wise man, King Solomon. In Proverbs, Solomon shows men how to find and live God’s will and be successful in life. Yet, don’t you find it compelling that the Wise Man concludes this amazing work with a tribute to his mother?

Let me encourage you to get your copy of God’s Word and read Proverbs 31:10-31. There’s not space here to reprint the whole passage. Anyway, this might be a good opportunity for some of you to get in your Bible reading today.

Amid all the many important Mother’s Day themes in this text, one really stands out to me. Notice all the times the Wise Man mentions his mother’s hands. In fact, he references “her hands” (or “hand” or “arms”) about eight times in these 22 verses.

Several years ago, the song, “Daddy’s Hands,” was written and became very popular. In fact, we still hear it occasionally at church. The lyrics of this song are really powerful. But when I hear it, I think from a biblical perspective of Proverbs 31 and “mother’s hands.”

As we think about Mother’s Day and “her hands,” let’s play a little “what if”: What if we had a dollar for each time our mother’s hands held a crying baby? What if we had a dollar for all the times her hands prepared us a meal? What if we had a dollar for every time mother used her hands to help dress little children? And, what if we had a dollar for all the times mother’s hands were folded in prayer for her children?

I’m sure you get the point from the preceding “what if” questions. We would be rich people, wouldn’t we? Indeed, folks, because of our mothers, we are rich!

The Rev. Robert Griffin is pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Clanton. Look for another installment of his column in a future edition of The Clanton Advertiser.