In a story about some of the worst Mother’s Day gifts ever given, the Houston Chronicle repoted a story about Jerry
Maltz giving his wife an iron. He got the message when she gave him an ironing board for Father’s Day.
One of
the most notoriously bad characters that ever lived in New York was Orville
Gardner. He was the trainer of prize-fighters and companion of all sorts of
hard characters. His reputation was so thoroughly bad that he was called “Awful
Gardner.”
D. L Moody used to tell the story of a
man who came to him and said, “When the Mexican war began I wanted to enlist.
My mother, seeing I was resolved, said if I became a Christian I might go. She
pleaded and prayed that I might become a Christian, but I wouldn’t. I said when
the war was over I would become a Christian, but not till then.
When the California gold fever broke
out, a man went there, leaving his wife in New England with his boy. As soon as
he got on and was successful he was to send for them. It was a long time before
he succeeded, but at last he got money enough to send for them. The wife’s
heart leaped for joy. She took her boy to New York, got on board a Pacific
steamer, and sailed away to San Francisco.
A beautiful young mother in New York City reterned to the building in which her little infant lay asleep and was appalled to
see the building in flames. The firemen could not restrain her and she dashed
through the flames and rescued her child, but in doing so, she was so severely
burned that her face was horribly disfigured for life. When she looked at her
face in the glass after it was healed, she was shocked at her disfigurement,
but was comforted by the thought that when her little girl grew up she
would appreciate the sacrifice that her mother had made to rescue her.
When a mother has a sick
child, it is marvelous how quick her ears become while attending it. Good
woman, we wonder she does not fall asleep. If you hired a nurse, it is ten to
one she would. But the dear child in the middle of the night
does not need to cry for water, or even speak; there is a little quick
breathing—who will hear it? No one would except the mother; but her ears are
quick, for they are in her child’s heart. Even so, if there is a heart in the
world that longs for the things of God, God’s ear is already in that poor sinner’s heart.
Ira Sankey, who for years led the music for D.L. Moody’s
evangelistic meetings, was traveling by steamboat on Christmas Eve in 1875. He
was recognized by some of the passengers, and they asked him to sing. Sankey
agreed, and began singing “Saviour Like a Shepherd Lead Us.” When the song was
done, one of the listeners stepped forward and asked, “Did you serve in the
Union Army?”
“Yes,” Mr. Sankey answered.
“Can you remember if you were doing
picket duty on a bright, moonlit night in 1862?”
Abraham Lincoln was well known for total abstinence from
alcohol. According to one well known story, he was once offered a drink by a colonel in the military. Lincoln responded by telling the man that when his mother was
on her deathbed, she had summoned him as a nine year old boy and asked for his
promise that he would never take a drink. He then said, “I promised my mother
that I never would, and up to this hour, I’ve kept this promise! Would you
advise me to break that promise?”
President Abraham Lincoln once summoned an Army surgeon to the White House. The
major assumed that he was to be commended for some exceptional work. During the
conversation Mr. Lincoln asked the major about his widowed mother. “She is
doing fine,” he responded.
“How do you know?” asked Lincoln. “You haven’t written her, but she has
written me.” Lincoln continued, “She thinks that you are dead, and she is
asking that a special effort be made to return your body.”
Mrs. Jones relaxed
by reading her Bible each day. After observing this habit for several
years, her 4-year-old daughter asked, “Aren’t you ever going to get finished
reading that book?”
Source: 1001 Quotes, Illustrations, and Humorous Stories for Preachers, Teachers, and Writers, Edward K. Rowell
Somebody said that a
child is carried in its mother’s womb for nine months.
Somebody does not know that a child is carried in its mother’s heart forever.
Somebody said it takes
about six weeks to get back to normal after you’ve had a baby.
Somebody doesn’t know that once you’re a mother, normal is history.
Somebody said you
learn how to be a mother by instinct.
Somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.
Somebody said being a
mother is boring.
Somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver’s permit.
A mother took her
young son shopping. After a day in the stores, a clerk handed the little boy a
lollipop. “What do you say?” the mother said to the boy, to which he replied, “Charge
it!”
A teacher asked a boy this question: “Suppose your mother baked a pie and there were seven of you—your parents and five children. What part of the pie would you get?”
“A sixth,” replied the boy.
“I’m afraid you don’t know your fractions,” said the teacher. “Remember, there are seven of you.”
“Yes, teacher,” said the boy, “but you don’t know my mother. Mother would say she didn’t want any pie.”
On August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 225 crashed just after
taking off from the Detroit airport, killing 155 people. One survived: a
four-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, named Cecelia. When rescuers found Cecelia they did not believe she had been on the
plane. Investigators first assumed Cecelia had been a passenger in one
of the cars on the highway onto which the airliner crashed. But when the
passenger register for the flight was checked, there was Cecelia's
name.
