It’s generally accepted that a mother’s love and devotion is second only to that of God’s. Perhaps the following account will demonstrate that.
After the 2011 earthquake in Japan, rescuers came across a demolished house. They could see a woman’s body inside in a very unusual position. She was on her knees with her body arched upward, but leaning forward with both arms outstretched in front of her.
Heavy debris had crushed her and she appeared to be dead. The team leader reached through the rubble and, touching her stiff, cold body, confirmed his suspicions … she had expired.
As the workers began to leave, the leader, haunted by the woman’s strange posture, decided to go back and take a closer look. He knelt down and reached under the corpse to ascertain why she was in such an unusual position. To his amazement, he felt a small, warm body!
The entire team immediately went to work carefully removing the piles of debris from around the dead woman. They reached in and removed a three-month-old boy, wrapped in a baby blanket, from under his mother’s dead body.
The woman, making the ultimate sacrifice, had positioned her body to make a life-saving cover over her son. The boy was sleeping peacefully as the rescue workers brought him out. The medical examination that followed revealed that he needed a bath, but he was not harmed or injured in any way. But there is more …
As the blanket that the boy was wrapped in was opened, a cellphone was discovered. A text message on the screen, left by his mother, said, “Son … if you survive, you must remember that I love you!”
Tears came to the eyes of each of the rescue workers and medical staff, as the phone was passed from worker to worker.
The love of mothers is illustrated in the Scripture repeatedly. Jochabed hiding Moses in the bulrushes (Exodus 2); Hanna praying for her son Samuel (1 Samuel 1); Lois and Eunice setting a godly example for Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5); even Salome promoting her sons, James and John (Matthew 20:21).
A mother’s love and influence is not only touching, but powerful.
Skeptic, Robert Ingersoll, had successfully won a public debate against faith in God. Later, a college student challenged his fellow student, saying , “Ingersoll knocked the props out from under Christianity, didn’t he?”
The other said, “No, he didn’t. Ingersoll did not explain my mother’s life, and until he can explain my mother’s life, I will stand by my mother’s God.”
“The love of a mother is never exhausted. It never changes — it never tires — it endures … a mother’s love still lives on.” Washington Irving
Happy Mother’s Day!
Pastor Ross Helgeton is senior pastor at Erskine Evangelical Free Church.
— Faith & Reflection