According to the website www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-09/, Anna Jarvis, a native of Grafton, West Virginia, launched a campaign to create a national holiday to honor mothers in the United States by creating a lasting commemoration to her mother and all mothers, living or deceased. Anna Jarvis’ desire to make a national holiday for mothers was to honor her mother’s accomplishments in serving the community. Anna’s mother believed mothers, even all women, could be a powerful source in their communities. She created Mother’s Day Work Clubs that fought local problems such as epidemic diseases and poor sanitary conditions. During the Civil War at Grafton, the Mother’s Day Work Clubs were nursing soldiers on both sides of the Confederate and Union conflict to bring a peaceful union in the community. After her mother’s death on May 9, 1905, Anna Jarvis wanted to fulfill her mother’s hope to establish a Memorial Mothers Day to recognize the duties that mothers partake in with the family, church, and community.
From a local recognition in Grafton to a state proclamation in West Virginia in 1910, Anna’s efforts to honor her mother’s accomplishments encompassed all women that helped her organize a force of community services. Anna’s plan of having a national holiday for mothers became a reality. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed to make Mother’s Day a national holiday.
Anna Jarvis wanted a Mother’s Day holiday to honor her mother’s services to other mothers. I pray that God will use the holiday to reunite mothers and children, help mothers memorialize their deceased children or children of their departed mothers, and bless barren women with the gift of adopting children.
Trials and tribulations have come between mothers and children that cause them to separate. On Mother’s Day, I pray that God will reconcile estranged relationships between mothers and children by granting them the spirit to make peace by setting aside all differences and forgiving all grievances they have made against each other. I pray that God will bring a fresh start to their relationship by bridging love, harmony, and unity.
Mother’s Day can be a time of sorrow for those who have lost a mother or a child by death. I pray that God will allow the holiday to be a day of remembrance for the bereaved mothers and children by remembering and cherishing all the good times they had with them: mothers mourning the loss of their children and children for the loss of their mothers. I pray that He will give them peace and comfort as they grieve by giving them a spirit of rejoicing because Jesus gave a home to their loved ones in heaven, where love, happiness, goodness, peace, and everlasting love reign forever.
For infertile women with a desire to be mothers and cannot produce children of their own, I pray that God will bring them joy by giving children to adopt as a gift on Mother’s Day; for Psalm 113:9 says, “He grants barren women a home, like a joyful mother of children (New King James Version).”
Since 1914, America has celebrated Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May each year. Because God gave everybody a mother as a gift to give us birth, we as Christians must remember to follow God’s commandment to honor our mother, not only on Mother’s Day but every day of our lives.—Kenneth Sullivan