Pastoral Resource Ministries, Inc.
An Outreach Resource Ministry
A Ministry for the Millennium
Words of Inspiration for the Week of May 9, 2004
To contact
Pastor Thelma Gilbert

For more information write or call us at:
Pastoral Resource Ministries, Inc.
P.O. Box 7232, Bloomfield, CT 06002
Phone (860) 243-2168 - Fax: (860) 242-1838
email: prministrie@snet.net
"HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY
God uses mothers for the establishment and maintenance of human institutions in government
and state, but primarily Christian mothers are for the purpose of sending forth into a sinful
world those who will become the salt of the earth and permeate the world with Christian
idealism. Mothers are or were meant to be, the chief soul-molders, character-constructors,
God's recruiting agents for the realms of heaven.  Both mothers and fathers are richly blessed
of the Lord when they can approach the throne of grace praying sincerely to God on behalf of
their children and families.

M - is for the million things she gave you
O - is only that she's growing old
T - is for the tears she shed for God to save you
H - is for her heart of purest gold
E - is for her eyes, with love-light burning.
R - is right - and right she'll always be.

MOTHER'S DAY HISTORY

Every year we celebrate Mother's Day.  But many of us do not know about the humbling story
behind the birth of this day.  The founder of Mother's Day was Anna M. Jarvis.

Anna Jarvis' own mother, Mrs. Ann Reeves Jarvis, had died on the second Sunday in May 1905,
and that is why this particular Sunday was designated as Mother's Day. The first Mother's Day
celebration was held in a small church in Grafton, West Virginia, the town where Anna was
born.

Anna Jarvis was 10 years old at that time and attended the church with her parents and
brothers and sisters.  At the age of 20 she graduated from Augusta Female Seminary at
Staunton, Virginia, and returned home to teach in the public schools.  She also taught in
Andrews Methodist Church Sunday school with her mother.  During that time her mother had
plans to set aside a day in honor of mothers of the world but never lived to seen her work
accomplished.  

On December 31, 1902, Mr. Jarvis died and Mrs. Jarvis moved to Philadelphia with her children
to live with her son, Claude.  Mrs. Ann Reeves Jarvis died three years later on May 9, 1905.  In
1907, Anna invited some friends to her home in Philadelphia to celebrate the anniversary of her
mother's death and announced plans to make Mother's Day a national observance on the
second Sunday in May.

Next, Miss Jarvis wrote L. L. Lear, superintendent of Andrew Sunday school with the
suggestion for the church to celebrate a Mother's Day in honor of her mother.  On Sunday, May
10, 1908, the first Mother's Day church service was held at Andrews Church.  Two Years later,
governor William E. Glasscock of West Virginia officially proclaimed the first Mother's Day.

Although a sincere devotion and a deep realization of her loss undoubtedly were behind the
movement, the real beginning of Mother's Day might be said to go back to the time just after
the Civil War when Ann's own mother organized the Union of Confederate Mothers of her little
community in an effort to get the boy in blue and the boys in gray to be friends again.  Anna
carried this memory on.

Be Blessed,
Pastor Thelma Gilbert

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God..." (I John 4:7)