Old Mothers
May 14, 2017
Proverbs 23:22b – “… despise not thy mother when she is old.”
Your Mother When She Is Old
We need as many “old mothers” as we can get in the church and in our lives. We need to honor the older mothers among us and change our thinking about the word, “old.”
For some reason, we have attached a stigma to old age such that people do not like to be called, “old.” Yet, in the scriptures, it is a badge of honor and a sign of God’s blessing.
Perhaps some thought ought to be given to reviving the old custom of honoring the eldest mother in the church on Mother’s Day. In the New testament, older women were all considered mothers of the church. That had something to give and the church was tuned to receive it.
One can think of three reasons why we might learn from and honor the eldest among us and they spell O-L-D.
O – Older mothers have gotten OVER some things. There is no substitute for experience. The most important and valuable advantage of experience is that it teaches us that wherever we are in our journey, we are stuck. We might be going through some difficulties, but we can and will get through them. We might be laboring under some burdens, but we can and will get over them. We can know this because our elders could and did get over theirs.
L - Older mothers have LEARNED some things. Life has taught them some lessons and most are willing to share those lessons. We all know more today than we did yesterday. The longer we go, the more we potentially learn. We can honor our mothers by listening to their perspectives. They know some things we do not know because they have had time to learn them.
D – Older mothers have DONE some things. They have had time to accomplish some goals, to have a few failures, and to enjoy some victories. When we look at their lives, we take courage in knowing that we can also accomplish some things. In fact, they sometimes did what seemed impossible, but with God’s help, they did them anyway. We need them as role models.
These are three reasons to honor our older mothers and to strive to someday be old mothers and old fathers.