Sunday is Mother’s Day. To celebrate, here’s a little recipe I would like to share with all the mothers entitled: How to Bake A Cake.

Step 1: Light oven, get out utensils and ingredients. Remove blocks and toy cars from table. Grease pan, crack nuts.

Step 2: Measure two cups of flour; remove Junior’s hands from flour; wash flour off him. Re-measure flour.

Step 3: Put flour, baking powder, and salt in sifter. Get dustpan and brush up pieces of bowl Junior knocked on floor. Get another bowl. Answer doorbell.

Step 4: Return to kitchen. Remove Junior’s hands from bowl. Wash Junior. Answer phone. Return. Remove one-fourth inch salt from greased pan. Look for Junior. Grease another pan. Answer telephone.

Step 5: Return to kitchen and find Junior. Remove his hands from bowl. Take up greased pan and find layer of nutshell in it. Head for Junior who flees, knocking bowl off table.

Step 6: Wash kitchen floor, tables, walls, dishes. Call baker. Lie down.

I imagine many mothers can identify with that recipe.

Being a mother is tougher today than ever before. There are more problems, more expectations, more joys, and more heartache.

I believe that God has given mothers a heart that is close to His own.

The Bible instructs in Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Thomas Edison wrote this tribute to his mother — “I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me a good influence that lasted all my life. The good effects of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been for her appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I would never have likely become an inventor.”

Mothers have a way of shaping the future by the influence they have on their children.

The mother of George Washington taught her son the biblical ideals of political and social morality, which Washington kept before the nation throughout his life.

Family prayers were held twice a day with regular readings from the Scriptures.

I believe that one godly mother is worth a hundred clergy.

I remember growing up in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

I was only about seven years old when I started asking questions about God.

And when I was ready to make the decision to accept Christ as my Savior, mom was right there leading me in prayer.

This Mother’s Day, I pray that God will bless our mothers for all they have done and how they have influenced us in so many ways.

In closing, I would like to dedicate this special Mother’s Day song to my mom and all of the influential mothers around the world.

(Sing along if you know the tune.)

“M is for the million things she gave me; O is only that she’s growing old. T is for the tears she shed to save me; H is for her heart of purest gold. E is for her eyes with love-light shining; R is for right and right she’ll always be. Put them all together, they spell ‘Mother,’ the name that means all the world to me.”

Happy Mother’s Day!

Rev. Doug Johnson is the senior pastor at Raven Assembly of God in Raven, Virginia