Sunday, May 8th, 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. Remeasure 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 phone. 

 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.”

Mothers have a way of shaping the future by the influence they have on their children. Famous inventor, 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.”

The mother of the first U.S. President 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 7 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.

My wife has been an amazing mother to our two children.

Not only did she teach them to be productive citizens of society and always give back to others—but she did that while being a pastor’s wife.

So much is expected of pastor’s wives today. She is to support her husband’s ministry, raise the ideal family, be a model Christian woman, help out in the church, while always being watched.

When her husband is criticized, she takes it the hardest. 

When he’s had a hard day, she stays up all night listening to him. Everything she says and does, even how she dresses, is under constant scrutiny. 

Like anyone else, she has hurts and needs, but unlike others she is expected to deal with them on her own because time and experience have proven there aren’t many people you can trust.

Her heart often cries: “Why can’t we be like normal people?

There are easier ways to make a living.”

But God has been faithful to us through it all!

In closing, I would like to dedicate this special Mother’s Day song to 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.