It may not seem like a gift, but it is.

It's just not cool in the World today to have a lot of children. You are definitely "sinning" against the World's system, the planet, and society by having them, they say. It's downright shameful in their eyes! But this Mother's Day we get the gift of being dead to this world and alive to Christ and alive to his Word and his being the only definer of what is good for his world, his planet, and society.

Not only that, we also get this totally awesome bonus gift:
to be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.  Hurray!   *Cough*

We, who bow ourselves under the cross of our God given vocations, who deny the "my will be done" lifestyle that the world highly esteems, and who, by God's grace, and within the holy ark of His Church, say "Thy will be done," submitting ourselves to the Word of God, reverencing our husbands, and by the mercies of God presenting our lives as living sacrifices, being willing to bear and love and train children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, will never be loved by this wicked and adulterous generation.  Never! 

We just need to know that, so we are not shocked when it dawns on us that there is no "cool" way to  put this lifestyle, not even to my own sinful flesh - the Biblical chaste obedient meek humble fruitful multiplying surrendering your will lifestyle. But hey, Jesus never said it would be.  If he is (not was) despised, won't we be also, if we are his disciples?

So when we are called names like uncool, fools, demeaned, wreckers of the planet, stupid, unintelligent barefoot and pregnant housewives, or whatever else, we can rejoice, knowing that our master Jesus Christ was called much worse, and we can go away...

 "... rejoicing that [we are] counted worthy to suffer shame for his name."
 Acts 5:41

So, Happy Mother's Day tomorrow!

Sorry, I'm not trying to be morbid.  I'm just saying this world is not our home, especially for Christian mothers these days. God is our home.  And until we are with him in glory, where he has promised we will be, we, like our Lord Jesus, will not be loved for our obedience to God.  This is the cross we bear in this world - the shame and scorn of those to whom the cross is foolishness.

"To speak more clearly of it, you should not take the cross of Christ to mean this or that 

wood on which Christ hung suspended: but the cross of Christ is the shame and the great 

indignity which Christ innocently suffered....

This is why true Christians must be dubbed heretics and evil doers.
They must be condemned, despised, and judged by all, that everybody wipes his feet on them."

What Luther Says  #1045

Here are some flowers for us.