Creative Mothers

Today I helped my mother with a couple things in her Sunday School room, and, not for the first time, was impressed by her creativity, her passion, and her desire to excite the imaginations and hearts of children with the things of God. 

As she described her plans to me for her summer curriculum, "Parable Park," I smiled, more on the inside than outwardly, so she wouldn't notice and ask. I had some good Sunday School teachers in my time, but none that went to the lengths that my mother goes to in order to make her classroom a fun and interesting place. Currently she is transforming her room into a park, complete with a slide, a tree, and a mural, and I'm sure much more is on it's way.

Now, I'm fairly certain that if my mother didn't put in this extra effort, if she didn't build a park in her room, the children who come through her classroom would not leave spiritually malnourished. I'm sure they would, as I know they do in other classrooms, receive sound biblical teaching by people who care about them. But it is people like my mother for whom I am especially grateful. People who don't have to do the things they do, but do them anyway, because they care. Because they are sweet, thoughtful, giving, creative people who want to bring a little bit of extra joy into people's lives. 

And so I thank you, Father, for creative mothers. I thank you for those who work tirelessly behind the scenes, cutting out pictures and making posters, designing crafts and coming up with games, writing songs out on posterboards and recruiting their sons to carry fake trees into their classrooms. I thank you for their dedication to children, to teaching, to loving. And I thank you that the sweetest, most thoughtful, dedicated, giving, and creative mother of all is my own.