the basic message #E260

5/8/04

This week's message is somewhat of a departure from what I normally write.  Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and I'd like to take this opportunity to honor mothers everywhere.  Is Mother's Day a religious holiday?  Nope, but good mothers keep this whole world running smoothly.  The main reason our society is in such turmoil today is due to the shrinking number of good moms out there.

I know quite a few good mothers, including my own mom, but today I'd like to honor my wife, who I think is among the very best.  Debbie grew up with two primary goals: marry and have children.  Although our children (Johnny and Alice) are now adults, Debbie still dotes over them as if they were still her little ones.  I often grumble about "letting them grow up!", but I understand that anyone who has dedicated their life to bringing children into this world and nurturing them for 2 decades can't simply flip a switch on motherly emotions.  It took quite a few years for me to understand that mothers and fathers usually have very, very different outlooks on how to raise and relate to their children.  Guys, I don't think we will ever fully understand what it's like to fill the role of mom no matter how hard we try.  Until science someday creates a way for a man to become pregnant and have the baby, we will never quite "get it". 

While I hope and pray that the scientists will never achieve that goal, I also fully realize that our American culture is headed for trouble in the way young women are being "deprogrammed" for genuine motherhood.  It would seem that modern American women want to be men.  I drive about 35,000 miles each year, so I get to see hundreds of thousands of drivers in that time span.  I am continually amazed at the increasing number of aggressive women drivers, and even more concerned that I see more women smoking than men.  Does aggressive driving or smoking make a woman less fit as a mom?  No, but it certainly does affect their job of role model.  As long as men were the dominant one in the couple and the woman the more demure, things worked better.  Now we often have 2 dominant characters in parenting, and it just doesn't work very well. Sadly, I'm seeing more and more families in which the woman has all of the dominant traits and the man simply waits on orders from "the boss".  That's not Biblical, folks, but that's a subject for another day.  Rather than spend time criticizing the "Super Soccer Mom" so prevalent in our society, let me get back to my candidate for Mom of the Year"........my wife.

Debbie had a good job with a promising future when she became pregnant with our first child Johnny.  We had a new house, a new car and a new motorcycle, so we fully intended for her to go back to work to help pay for our "stuff".  I fully believe that God intervened and convinced us to go to a simpler and cheaper life style so Debbie could stay home with Johnny.  If I only knew at the time that it would be many, many years before we could have a nice life style again, we might have done things differently.  Going from a brand new large home to a small, old mobile home was a tough adjustment.  At one point we only had one car and the kids were grown before I got to ride motorcycles again.  But that's okay- it was the right thing to do.  Debbie never complained about being home-bound with the kids.  While most other young women were working and dumping their kids into day-care everyday, Debbie spent thousands of hours with the children.  I'd love to tell you that our family has had a storybook life, but we've had our struggles like many other families.  There have been times that I thought that we sacrificed for nothing, but the old line from Proverbs about raising a child right is absolutely true.  God made us a promise, and he's going to come through, as always. 

Johnny is 24 and Alice is 21, but if I could see them from Debbie's eyes, they're probably somewhere around 6 or 7 years old.  Some mothers haul their little girls from one beauty pageant to the next, often trying to live their personal dreams through their daughter.  Debbie passes a legacy to Alice that shows total dedication as a mother.  I don't always agree that any woman should totally immerse herself into her children, but considering how screwed-up our society is today, I'd have to say that maybe more women should dedicate their lives to be "The Mom".  I have a hard time believing that the "Soccer Moms" can be completely immersed in their careers and still be a decent mother.  Debbie had a home cooked meal on the table promptly every night for 2 decades, and we seldom failed to have dinner each night as a family.  How many do that today?  The modern church wants to chase rabbits such as "the homosexual agenda" whenever they look for something to blame for the breakdown of the American family.  It's just too hard for knuckleheads like James Dobson and D. James Kennedy to accept the real cause of the demise of the traditional American family, and that it starts with the demise of traditional American parents.  The "Traditional American Mother" is rapidly fading from sight, and there is little to suggest that we will get any relief in the future. 

To Debbie and all of the "Traditional" moms in this world, I salute each and every one of you.  You are the glue that bonds this world together, and when you are all gone, may God help us.