AN APPEAL TO MOTHERS by M. W. H.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 25, 1902

AN APPEAL TO MOTHERS.

By M. W. H.

M. W. H.

By the blessing of God, I have been cured of a state of mental blindness of long standing, and I wish to say a few words in behalf of the children. Dear mothers, let us love our children more; not foolishly nor selfishly, but with the love of God; and not only love them, but let them know that we love them.

Perhaps some will say: “Of course we love them, and they know we do. Do we not feed, clothe, and watch over them, and do a thousand things that prove we love them?” Ah! but children do not gauge our love by these things. They need to grow up and have children of their own in order to realize the care, anxiety, and self-sacrifice they have cost. I said the same thing when God showed me that I was keeping love locked in my heart which I ought to be using every day; but when, after a few days of living the love I felt, my youngest girl said, “Why, mama, I did not know you loved me,” the unconscious rebuke cut me to the quick.

Dear sister, it may be that your little one does not know “mama loves her.” In the name of Jesus, tell her while you have her, and prove by your life that you do love her.

Let us be very careful when we have occasion to correct or admonish our children to do it in love, and to show them that because we love them, we must be faithful to the trust God has given us. And when we make a mistake, let us frankly acknowledge it, and ask their forgiveness. Try it. I have, and nothing I ever did brought my children so near to me.

Let us remember the fate of Eli, and ever keep in mind that the little ones are the lambs of the Lord’s flock, and that it were better for one “that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”

Dear busy mothers, take time to show your children that you love them. It will not take long, and then they can see your love for them in all that you do.

Of course we should live the love of Christ in all our relations in our home and outside of it, but our children need it most. They are starving for it, and it will not be long before they will go out to others for the love which is their due from us, and our opportunity will be gone. May God open the eyes of those who are blind, that they may not lose their opportunity.

God help us not to overlook the duties nearest us in our eagerness for larger ones, and forbid that a home should be marred, or one of His little ones lost, through any carelessness or neglect of ours.