Who Rocks The Cradle

May 12 is Mother's Day. The holiday began with Anna Jarvis as a way to remember her own mother, the wife of a Methodist minister in Grafton, West Virginia. Two years after her mother's death, Anna held a memorial service for her on the second Sunday in May, the day she had died. The church was filled with 500 carnations, her mother's favorite flower.

Jarvis was so moved by the service that she started a letter-writing campaign to establish a formal holiday honoring mothers. In 1910, West Virginia officially recognized "Mother's Day." Five years later, President Woodrow Wilson signed the law making Mother's Day, the second Sunday in May, a national holiday.

Mothers still have a transforming influence on our lives and our culture. Personally, I cannot begin to describe the enormous impact of my mother on my life. I can certainly relate to Abraham Lincoln when he said, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." Dwight Moody agreed: "All that I have ever accomplished in life, I owe to my mother." Charles Spurgeon testified, "I cannot tell how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother."

It was William Ross Wallace who coined the phrase, "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." The following is the poem that contains that prophetic line:

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace.
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow—
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission,
Here upon our natal sod;
Keep—oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky—
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

(Dane Fowlkes, Pastor)