Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “I cannot tell you how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother.” Countless people today could say the same thing, and today’s the day to express extra gratitude.
Reflect on honoring mothers, the value of mothers, and a mothers’ love with these 11 Bible verses for Mother’s Day. (more…)
Proclaim just got a major update, and now there are even more ways to make your presentations awesome. Just in time for Mother’s Day, we’ve added text effects—including pattern overlay—and a variety of text styles to change the look and feel of your services. It’s easier than ever to create a classy feel for your Sunday services or engaging presentations for your youth group. You have more options than ever, and new Smart Media packs will look sharper, more intricate, and more beautiful.
Just pull up a slide and click on an item to see what you can do with it:
Effects: This tab allows you to add drop shadow, inner glow, outer glow, inner stroke, outer stroke, gradient overlay, and pattern overlay. With new Smart Media, our designers do all of this for you, creating subtle distinctions most people won’t even know they’re being drawn to.
Styles: This tab helps match the look and feel of your text to the setting. There are more than 80 unique styles for you to choose from, so whatever the occasion, your slides are ready. You can even stylize multiline text.
Text rotation: Now, you can rotate your text to arrange it however you want. When you select your text, just click the blue circle above the text box and drag your mouse.
Take a look at how seamless pattern overlays and text rotation can subtly make your slides look even better:
Our design team is constantly creating beautiful art, and now you have even more options to make your slides stunning. For those of you who like to do everything yourself, Proclaim’s latest update lets you take the wheel. For everyone else, these brand-new features mean our professional designers can keep coming up with incredible designs, just for you.
To see text effects at work, check out this week’s TWiP video:
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Pro Media helps your presentations stand out. When you subscribe to Pro Media, you gain access to over 80 packs of Smart Media—art that autofills the fields you use all the time. You get even more welcome videos, countdowns, sermon backgrounds, and beautiful motion graphics to subtly enhance your services. Purchase Pro Media in Proclaim, or over the phone at 855-715-6467.
For some women, Mother’s Day is an uncomfortable reminder of their singleness or their lack of children. Kids and perhaps even some adults assume that because they are a woman, they are also the mother of a child. Every time someone says “Happy Mother’s Day!” it can stir up a sense of inadequacy, or possibly reopen the scars of relational wounds. As followers of God, we are called to honor our father and mother, but as Christians, we are part of a much bigger family.
God’s probably not asking you to write “Happy Mother’s Day” on a card for every woman or to start calling them “mom,” but take a look at these two verses in Mark:
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10: 29–30)
When we leave ourselves behind and join the body of Christ, we become part of a much larger family, and we gain relationships and experience the generosity of our spiritual family. But that’s not all Jesus has to say about this new definition of family. In John, we read this:
. . . but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25–27)
In the moment Mary lost her son, she gained another—a spiritual son who cared for and honored her just as a biological son would have. This relational model is perpetuated through women of faith in the church.
Not everyone is blessed with a biological family that shares in the joys of their faith. For some, Mother’s Day is hard because it feels like a mandate to honor someone who has hurt them. Someone who abused them emotionally, physically, or spiritually. For them, it’s important to remember that despite our pain, God does not make exceptions. We are all called to honor our father and mother (Matthew 15: 4–6). For others, Mother’s Day is yet another reminder of the people they have lost.
The Bible provides us with exceptional models of the ideal mother. One of the most prominent is in Proverbs 31:10–30. Mothers care for their families by emotionally, spiritually, and physically providing for them. In the body of Christ, we are surrounded by women who pour wisdom and love into our lives and devote their own time and finances to care for us. These are our spiritual mothers.
Even for your biological mother, getting a card and saying happy Mother’s Day probably isn’t the most meaningful way to show your appreciation for her. It’s the act of lifting her up and pausing everything else going on in your life to remember her and love her that shows your honor for her. This Mother’s Day, let’s honor the mothers in our immediate families, but let’s also take a moment in the body of Christ to lift up the women of faith who don’t have kids, but love and care for us all the same.
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Get an animated look at Proverbs 31, and see why it really applies to all women.