Note From Mother – Week 1
Note From Mother Collection - Week 1
Teaching:
Getting your family and friends to heaven can sometimes seem like a very hard thing to do. Especially if you have a few wily ones in the family. Telling all of the Middle East about Jesus also seems almost impossible, but everything starts with a small seed or one little tiny step. I think that the Lord said it very well in Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. He was talking about how you sow seeds and some people won’t understand, but still you sow seeds. I think the Lord is all about sowing seeds, and seeing the growth in people’s lives.
There are so many seeds that have been growing in my life. When I was little I had a Beginner’s Bible; they were all short stories from the Bible that were made into pictures. I loved having my mom or dad read a story or two to me. I believe those stories were a seed that grew in my life, a seed of faith. Someone spent the time to draw the pictures in the Beginner’s Bible, they were sowing a seed. Someone had to buy the Beginner’s Bible; me being a child I couldn’t buy it myself. Another seed. The person who read it to me sowed yet another seed. The story itself taken from the Bible was also another seed that grew. Getting family and friends to heaven is sort of like that. Sowing seeds liberally. Some will grow abundantly and some might get thrown onto a rocky place. Yet, flowers have been known to grow between concrete. Trees grow on rock faces. “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Grandma Bev told me a story recently about neighbors and how she cared about them. She was trying to sow a seed by just sending a little note. Sometimes that is all someone needs; a little note to tell them how much they are cared about. We are God’s hands and feet. Leo’s mom, Hilda, wrote Leo a note when he was in Germany after WWII. She was sick and it was thought that she would not survive to see Leo again when he came back. So she wrote him a note and this is what it said. “Dearest son: This box of things is for you. If I should not be here to give it to you, God Bless you and keep you in the hollow of His hand. Till we meet home in glory, let’s not one of us be missing there. Lot’s of Love, Mother.”
Wes’ song Note from Mother is based off of this true story. Leo did get leave to come home from Germany, and did see his mother. She lived for many years afterward. It wasn’t until years later after his mother had passed that that note stood out to him. It was a seed sown in his life early on, a seed he intended to pass along. Leo made it his life’s mission to make sure not one of us would be missing there.
Verse:
Matthew 13:3-9 NIV
3...“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
Questions:
Was God on your radar when you were growing up?
What was your relationship with your mom like? Did she instill Godly Values in your life?
If you were to leave something behind for your loved ones…. What would you write?
What is one way that someone else has sown a seed in your life and how did it grow?
Challenge:
Sow a seed in someone else’s life for Heaven, whether a friend or family member. Write them a little note to tell them you care about them like Hilda and Bev did. Bring them cookies or a meal, write an e-mail, etc. Think about that person you don’t want to be missing there, and do what you can to sow even the tiniest, smallest seed into their life.