I was in line at the grocery checkout. A few feet in front of me, a mother guided her toddler ahead, anchored her baby on her hip, and elbowed her checkbook open to pay the clerk. In what seemed like one single gesture, she retrieved her toddler's hand from the candy rack, tore the check from her book and offered it to the clerk while placing a comforting smooch atop her baby's head. The baby drooled ...

A few years ago, ChristianityToday.com asked readers to share how much their mothers and grandmothers meant to them. In response, Bill Fix, of Taylor, Michigan, shared a moving testimony about his mother's faithful witness:

[Mom] grew up around the coal mines where her daddy worked, deep in the mountainous regions of Virginia. She came from a large, poverty-stricken family, so she learned how to be ...

In most families, miscommunications are a common event. And when mothers are involved, overcommunication can sometimes be an issue. But a recent court ruling from Austria highlights a rift between mother and son that is truly remarkable—and truly sad.

A woman from the town of Klagenfurt was fined 360 euros ($478) on a charge of stalking her adult son. It was the son who filed the lawsuit, claiming ...

The Fantasy: As your little ones sit quietly at the kitchen table and hum along with Beethoven, they absorb their age-appropriate encyclopedias. Meanwhile, you recreate the map of the U.S. using homemade sugar cookies. Ahhh, you think to yourself. This is what life's all about.

The Reality: Your little darlings simultaneously shriek, "Mine!" as they rip the latest Bob the Builder coloring book in two. ...

A transformation occurred in me with the birth of my children. I traded in that professional look for sweatpants. I found myself at the park with my children, looking at working women and thinking, I'd like to be doing that.

But the transformation went deeper than trading my business suit for a pair of sweatpants. There was something else going on when I had children. I knew my life had been invaded ...

A quick look at our culture shows that idealized images of motherhood are inaccurate, and Scripture reveals the same. Ruth was left childless and widowed at a young age. Rachel, Hannah, and Sarah were infertile. Eve and Mary lost sons under terrible circumstances. Two mothers of two kings, both named Ahaziah, encouraged their sons to be wicked and unjust. The Prodigal Son acted with terrible disrespect ...

As our Bible study group began focusing on the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, I felt pretty smug. After all, I didn't worship more than one God, steal, commit adultery or murder, lie about my neighbors, or plot to cheat them out of what was rightfully theirs. But one evening we came to the command to honor our father and mother (v. 12). Against my will, I thought of my mother, who'd passed away ten ...

A few years ago, I somehow ended up buying two Mother's Day cards. I sent one to my mother, and because I keep a three-year calendar, I filed the other one away in the May section of the next year. Sadly, my mother died shortly after I sent that first card. Now I have a greeting card that can never be delivered—unless U.S. postal service can find a way to get it to eternity!

The more I've reflected ...

When our daughter, Kathy, was participating in a parenting class at her church, she explained to her 6-year-old daughter, Kayla, that she was taking a course to help make her a better mommy. The next Sunday, after church, Kayla became upset and had a tantrum because she was not getting her way. Both parents tried to calm her. But with tears streaming down her face and in a loud voice, Kayla announced ...

Evening is the story of an old dying woman, Ann (played by Vanessa Redgrave). In a series of flashbacks, Ann reflects on the good and bad choices in her life as a mother to her two daughters, Connie and Nina. In this scene a younger Ann (played by Claire Danes) is frantically moving about in the kitchen, trying her best to make spaghetti for her busy husband, ten-year-old Connie, and four-year-old ...