The Bible asks us to honor and love our mothers.
It says so in Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother,” and Leviticus 19:3, “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father.”
Proverbs 31:25-28 further describes a virtuous woman: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.”
With Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 11, 2025, I feel compelled to share just a bit of history of how and why Mother’s Day began in the first place. According to the History.com website, the history of Mother’s Day began with celebrations of mothers and motherhood.
It can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, with festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”
Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their main church in the vicinity of their home for a special service.
Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition, with families worshiping with mother, shifted into a more secular holiday, and children would present their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation. While Mother’s Day in the U.S. was officially established in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation, the holiday as we know it today took shape in the 1930s and 1940s.
Ann Reeves Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe are credited with starting this tradition in the United States. According to History.com, the origins of Mother’s Day as celebrated in the United States date back to the 19th century. In the years before the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to teach local women how to properly care for their children.
These clubs later became a unifying force in a region of the country still divided over the Civil War. For those of you not so familiar with the American Civil War, it began April 12, 1861, and ended April 8, 1865. In 1868 Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation. After all, they had fought against one another for four years, when hundreds of thousands of people were killed. According to the History.com website, the intense combat left between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilians, our deadliest war until the Vietnam War. Therefore, this was the best time to bring mothers together for the cause of celebrating them.
Another precursor to Mother’s Day came from the abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe. In 1870 Howe wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a call to action that asked mothers to unite in promoting world peace. In 1873 Howe campaigned for a “Mother’s Peace Day” to be celebrated every June 2.
I’m sure there are other stories about Mother’s Day out there, but regardless of how and why it began, it truly is a tradition which takes on its own life for mothers each year. Our mother will forever be the only one who gave birth to us; therefore, whether you believe she was good or bad, she will forever be your mother.
In essence, to all of the Christian women who have been reading this column, you are the Proverbs 31 woman; you are a model of a woman who lives a life of faith, diligence and wisdom, and whose character is rooted in her relationship with God. Part 2 next week.
Lyndia Grant is a speaker/writer living in the D.C. area. She hosts “Think on These Things,”. on 1340 AM (WYCB), a Radio One station.
This story originally appeared here.