A Mother's Love Outlives Them All

Blessedly, in the lives of most of us, there are saving and safeguarding influences moving in the background, molding and mellowing and maturing us—influences of which we are often unaware. And one such influence is the patient, prayerful, presence of the mothers of men.
Long years after my own beloved mother had left this life, I learned of things she had done for me which I had never known—of times when I thought I was self-sufficient, when I thought I was doing all things for myself, when she had been moving in the background, watching, waiting, aware of problems and pitfalls and possibilities, and warding many things away, with prayerful patience, even after I was far from home.
How could she do otherwise? The Lord God had given her to me, and me to her, and she seemed to be as the extended arm of His influence. That I had known her before entering the limits of this life, I doubt not; and in helping me to life here, she had offered her own.
She had nourished and sheltered me in infancy; nursed me in illness; heeded my cries and quieted my fears; had taught and counseled and encouraged, and dulled the sharp edge of disappointments.
And all this she did so wisely and so well, so unobtrusively, with such quiet constancy, that of all she was and of all she did we were almost unaware—until her hands moved no more, until her voice was heard no more, except in hallowed memory.
William James said: “the greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that outlasts it.” By this test, mothers make great use of life in the everlasting effects of their unselfish service.
And well would we remember the words of Macaulay: “Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, …feeling… even a single touch…by that gentle hand! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother…In after life you may have friends, fond, dear friends, but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you, which none but a mother bestows.”170
With mellowed hearts and hallowed memories we thank mothers for life given and for lessons learned, and for the constancy of their sacrifice and service. And best we honor them when we become the best of what they have taught us to be.
“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall: a mother’s secret love outlives them all.”