I find it interesting that in the King James Version of the Bible, nine of the ten commandments are negative commandments: don’t do this, don’t do that. Even “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” goes on to say “thou shalt not do any work. . . .” To break these commandments, you have to actively do something: kill, cheat, worship a graven image, etc.
There one exception, one commandment that could be broken by simply a sin of omission: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land with the Lord thy God shall give thee.”
Traditionally, we understand this commandment to mean “obey your parents,” but that isn’t what it says. It says to honour. (Perhaps your wedding vows contained the promise to “love, honor and obey,” three different concepts.) This particular word choice can add a lot to our understanding of not only this commandment but also the kind of value that we should place on motherhood. (I’d love to hear any insights gained on this from the original Hebrew, too, if anyone has any!)
What does it mean to honor motherhood? We can pretty easily define motherhood, and we’ve even done so in one of our most popular group writing projects.
So what does it mean to ‘honor’ motherhood? In my scriptures, a helpful footnote gives a few synonyms for ‘honour’: “respect or value.” This goes far deeper than just obeying your parents’ rules until you get out of the house, and expecting the same from your children.
Truly honoring motherhood means to place value upon the efforts that we make as mothers every day, and not just because these efforts give us food to eat, clean clothes to wear and a clean house. Honoring motherhood means recognizing that raising our children is important, and quite probably the most important thing we’ll ever do. It’s a task that’s worth doing, worth doing well, and incredibly challenging.
Do you find it difficult to honor motherhood? I know I do! If so, why do you think that is? Is it the nature of the work? Pressures from others? Pressures and expectations from yourself?
2 replies on “HONORing motherhood”
Thanks for visiting my blog today.
This is an interesting topic to see you addressing just now, because I was just asked last week to prepare a 5-minute speech about “what my mom did right” to give at her church on Mother’s day (a surprise, but I don’t figure she’ll see me mention it here).
I asked the pastor to clarify the purpose, since there are a lot of young moms and I couldn’t tell if this was a “teach the young” moment or just about her/us.
“Just, honor your mom,” he said. “And if the young moms come away with one useful thing that will be enough.”
So I’ve written this 5-minute speech around the idea that my mom created my criteria for friendship. I’m really excited about it now, especially since right before I got asked we were studying this commandment in Sunday School and I was praying for a specific way to honor my parents.
It is directly honoring to my mother b/c it is about her, but it is also honoring my father, b/c he’s the one who first asked me to do it, and it seemed hard for him to ask, but he was pleased I accepted.
I hope to post the speech as a blog post once Mother’s Day is past (so it’s a genuine surprise).
What a great answer to prayer! I’ve had the opportunity to speak in Church on Mother’s Day probably three or four times now. The first two-three times I’m sure they asked me because they knew I had such a wonderful mother (and maybe they were hoping she’d write the talk!).
The last time, last year, they asked me because my husband volunteered me, talking to our bishop (minister) about my blog (they asked my husband to speak with me, so we were even). My talk, which took about 15 minutes, was my post last year for Mother’s Day, too.
Good luck with your comments!