A picture memory brings to me;
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother’s knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now,
a man gray grown,
My childhood’s needs are better known.
My mother’s chastening love I own.

John Greenleaf Whittier

I was but a youth and thoughtless,
As all youths are apt to be;
Though I had a Christian mother
Who had taught me carefully.

There came a time when pleasure
Of the world came to allure,
And I no more sought the guidance
Of her love so good and pure.

Her tender admonitions fell
But lightly on my ear,
And for the gentle warnings
I felt an inward sneer.

But Mother would not yield her boy
To Satan’s sinful sway,
And though I spurned her counsel
She knew a better way.

She made my room an altar,
A place of secret prayer,
And there she took her burden
And left it in His care.

And morning, noon and evening
By that humble bedside low,
She sought the aid of Him who
Understands a mother’s woe.

And I went my way unheeding,
Careless of the life I led,
Until one day I noticed
Prints of elbows on my bed.

Then I saw that she had been there
Praying for her wayward boy,
Who for love of worldly pleasure
Would her peace of mind destroy.

Long the conflict raged within me,
Sin against my Mother’s prayers,
Sin must yield - for Mother never
While she daily met Him there.

And her constant love and patience
Were like coals upon my head,
Together with the imprints
Of her elbows on my bed.

And so at last the fight was won,
And I to Christ was led,
And Mother’s prayers were answered
By her elbows on my bed.

One day a mother brought home a small jar and gave it to her little girl on her birthday. She told her little girl that the jar was magic, and she could write to her mommy about anything in the world, put it in the jar, and later, in its place, there would be a note for her. Soon the jar became a special part of their lives.

The little girl loved to get letters from her mommy. They always told her how special she was and had lots of XXXXs and OOOOs on them. Often there were reminders of something special they had planned together the next day, or a good luck letter if there was a dance recital coming up. Sometimes, too, there would be a little gift in the jar and a note telling her how proud her mommy was of her. She kept all of her mommy’s letters in a pretty box by her bed.

The mother treasured each of her little girl’s letters, too. There were crayoned “I love yous,” tea-party invitations, requests for ballet slippers, and even some Mother’s Day cards that had been folded and folded and folded just to fit in the jar. Those always made the mother smile. There was one where her little girl told her she was afraid of the dark, and that very night a small light was placed in her room, and all was well. Another favorite came when their dog Muffin was expecting puppies; there in the jar was a little note that read, “You’re going to be a grandma!” The mother kept all of those very special letters safely tucked in a chest at the end of her bed.

As the years went by, that little girl grew into a young lady and then got married and started a home of her own. For the first time, the jar sat empty. The mother dusted the jar every day and sometimes looked inside, remembering - sad that the magic jar years had to end.

One day the young lady came to visit her mother. She went straight to her mother’s room, opened the chest at the end of her bed, and found what she was looking for. She folded the piece of paper and put it in the jar, and handed it to her mother. The mother opened the magic jar and there was that note from so long ago, “You’re going to be a grandma!”

And when that baby boy was born months later, there was the jar sitting in his nursery with a blue bow tied around it, and a note that read, “Magic jar years never end; they are always just beginning.”

Cassie Marie Moore