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Mothers, take a deep breath and relax-my text today isn't Proverbs 31. Today, I'm not preaching on what it means to be an excellent wife and mother, instead, my primary audience is the children, not the mothers. Not everyone in this audience is a mother, but everyone has or had a mother, so we are looking at this holiday from the perspective of the child-not the mother.

Moms, when you're knee deep in dirty diapers, spilled oatmeal and bedtime stories, I'm sure it is easy to be so overwhelmed by motherhood that there is no time left to think about what you want FOR your children or FROM your children when they are grown. But from the time the nurse hands you that messy bundle of joy in the hospital, one thing is for certain-there will be a time when your children will leave home. Our helpless, fragile children grow up to become students, husbands, wives, doctors, mechanics, police officers and military personnel. The day will come when parents grow to depend upon those who once depended on us. That is the cycle of life.

Did you know that the first time the word "Mother" is mentioned in the bible it referred to the time when a child leaves home? Genesis 2:24 says, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh." (NASB) Of course the subject of this text is the celebration of marriage, not the grief of the empty nest, nevertheless, motherhood is not mentioned until this verse. I suppose at this point in the sermon I could say things like, "enjoy your children while you have them because they'll be gone soon," or "stop and smell the roses while you can," etc. But that's not where I'm going with this. Instead, I want to explore these two questions, "What do Mothers want FOR their children"" And "What do they want FROM their children?"

I sent out a few emails to women that I respect and asked them these two questions. Because I chose godly women, I wasn't surprised by spiritual depth of their answers, though their passion and clarity did catch me a bit off guard. None of them treated this question lightly, it was something they had obviously spent time thinking about were happy to tell me what they want. 

What do Mother's want FOR their children? This is an emotion-drenched question. Mothers, by and large,

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