Healthier Mom, healthier family, healthier world

Happy Mother’s Day! Remember the sappy cards! Remember breakfast in bed! Remember the dinner out! Remember the roses and the chocolate! Especially the chocolate.

But please, oh please, let your Mother’s Day celebration go well beyond the banal superficialities. Make it a time for healthier families by focusing on the needs and wellbeing of women who are mothers – and also providers, wives, lovers, nursemaids, chauffeurs, cooks, housecleaners, social directors, and on and on. In other words, women who work 24/seven for their families. In other words, Moms.

More than ever, families are under stress. Divorce rates are through the roof. Kids are in crisis. The shaky economy has many parents working longer hours for less buying power. And many couples say they are just barely holding everything together. So Mother’s Day is a time to help the woman who is a pillar of her family. (Dad's turn comes next month.)

It’s a stewardship issue because sociologists say family health correlates with cultural health. If we’re generally doing OK as families, lots of other big problems take care of themselves. This is because stable, healthy families are much more likely to raise kids who do well in school, go to church, resist drugs, choose friends wisely, stay out of trouble with the law, get decent jobs, make responsible decisions about sex and go on to be good parents themselves.

Mother’s Day provides an opportunity for everybody – not just husbands and children, but churches, too - to explore ways to support, encourage, assist, educate and pray for the women who lead families. Here are some things churches can do (for other ideas, see this week's Gleanings):

--Pray for Moms and their families..

--Ask women in the congregation what they need from church. Then give it to them.

--Encourage small groups for women of similar age, family status, occupation, etc. Let them together find confidential, candid fellowship with Christian sisters.

--Provide occasional child care, for free or at low cost, to stay-at-home moms who have toddlers. Give a mom a chance to have lunch with a friend, have a date with her husband, go to the gym, go shopping, take a nap – or just enjoy a moment of quiet time. Your youth groups could organize this once a month in your church’s nursery. 

--Organize a “Grandma on Call” service for working mothers who face a crisis when their child is sick but they have to go to work. Your church’s older women could help by staying with sick kids. They could also help when Mom herself is sick.

--Offer a marriage-enrichment program for the couples in your church to grow together. (You can do this in collaboration with other churches.)

--Host talks on issues of concern for women, such as child-rearing, home-schooling, stress reduction, aging, financial planning, etc.

 --Teach husbands how to be Godly men: Loving, faithful, sober, strong, caring, loyal, prayerful.

When you start thinking about it, there are lots of things we all can do. So buy the cards and the roses, but also get busy. And remember the chocolate!

-Rob Blezard, editor and webmaster

New this week:

'Giving Daily Care' stewardship reflections
Here is a series of eight brilliant, practical Bible reflections that explore the stewardship implications of everyday activities. Thoughtful, prayerful, very down to earth, the series looks at caring for ourselves, others, God's grace, justice, creation and other aspects of life. Click here for the menu of reflections, toward the bottom of the page. From Women of the ELCA.

Douglas John Hall: Stewardship in a new century