The Love Chapter for Mothers

Last week, I picked up a book on my shelf called Becoming a Woman Who Pleases God, by Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock. I had gotten the book a few years ago, it was recommended by some of the ladies in our mission, but never read it.

After reading the first chapter, I have been humbled and inspired towards becoming the woman that God truly desires. I came across this adaptation of 1 Corinthans 13, written by Dianne Lorang, and thought it was worth sharing.

The Love Chapter for Mothers

If I talk to my children about what is right and what is wrong, but I have not love, I am like a ringing doorbell or pots banging in the kitchen. And though I know what stages they will go through, and understand their growing pains, and can answer all their questions about life, and believe myself to be a devoted mother, but I have not love, I have nothing.

If I give up the fulfillment of a career to make my children's lives better, and stay up all night sewing costumes or baking cookies at short notice, but grumble about lack of sleep, I have not love and accomplish nothing.

A loving mother is patient with her children's immaturity and kind even when they are not; a loving mother is not jealous of their youth nor does she hold it over their heads whenever she has sacrificed for them.

A loving mother believes in her children; she hopes in each one's individual ability to stand out as a light in a dark world; she endures every backache and heartache to accomplish that.

A loving mother never really dies. As for home-baked bread, it will be comsumed and forgotten: as for spotless floors, they will soon gather dust and heel marks. As for children, right now toys, friends and food are all-important to them. But when they grow up, it will be their mother's love that they will remember and pass on to others. In that way, she will live on.

So care, training and a loving mother reside in a home, these three, but the greatest of these is a loving mother.