Someone told me a story about a humorous incident which occurred on Mother's Day in 1967.
As you know, Mother's Day is assumed to be a day that is both enjoyable and pleasing for everyone. Unfortunately, this Mother's Day in 1967 started out with one mother in particular feeling quite poorly. This mother had a throbbing, thunderous, eye-rolling, mind-numbing migraine headache. With her mom down and not feeling well at all, her 7-year-old daughter promoted herself to chief caretaker and caregiver.
Standing in the doorway of her mom's bedroom, the little girl asked, "Mommy, what can I do to help you?" Realizing rest would be practically impossible until she busied her young daughter with some responsibility, the mother said, "A cup of tea would be nice. Can you do that for me, sweet pea?" .
Well, her mother’s wish was her daughter's command. Not wanting to waste any time, the girl ran to the kitchen in an instant of time. For a number of minutes, the mom heard all kinds of concerning clanging’s, clanking’s, and clattering coming from the kitchen. Then, there came a suspicious silence. This silence was followed by her daughter quietly, discreetly and cautiously walking into the mother’s bedroom with a freshly brewed cup of tea.
The young daughter moved slowly, ever so slowly. The Mom sat up in her bed, took the tea and sipped. The tea tasted good. In fact, it was remarkably good!
While she took a couple sips of the cup of tea, the mother observed that her child's face shone vibrantly with an ear-to-ear grin of triumph and accomplishment. The mother acknowledged her little girl's kind and caring contribution: "My dear little girl, you have been very helpful to mommy, thank you so very much! Did you have any trouble making this cup of tea? No, Mommy, it was easy", came the little girl’s eager reply. With a sweet and innocent smile on her face, the little girl continued "The only hard part was I couldn't exactly remember where the strainer was for the tea...and I didn't want to bother you, so…I used the fly swatter, instead!”.
To the mother’s credit, she didn't spray a mouthful of tea across the room – not one drop, in fact! Indeed, she was rather quick in hiding the look of shock, surprise and perhaps a slight bit of repulsion which swept across her face. Yes, the mother was quick, but not quite quick enough.
The little girl had noticed the look on her mother’s face and quickly assured her that everything was perfectly OK. "Don't worry Mommy," the little girl said, "I didn't use the new fly swatter to strain your tea. I used the old one, instead.". The Mother hesitantly nodded and even managed to construct something of a satisfactory smile and finished her cup of tea that was affectionately strained with an old fly swatter.
As Scripture says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23).
Happy Mother's Day!
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