Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring motherhood that is observed in different forms throughout the world. The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialization and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. While dates and celebrations vary, Mother’s Day traditionally involves presenting moms with flowers, cards and other gifts.

History of Mother’s Day

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”

Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church”—the main church in the vicinity of their home—for a special service.

Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition shifted into a more secular holiday, and children would present their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation. This custom eventually faded in popularity before merging with the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.

BIBLE VERSES ABOUT MOTHERS

• Isaiah 66:13: "As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you."

• Isaiah 49:15: "Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne?"

• Proverbs 31:25: "She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come."

• Proverbs 31:26: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue."

• Proverbs 31:28–29: "Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 'Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.'"

• Deuteronomy 6:6–7: "And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."

• Proverbs 31:31: "Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."

• Psalm 139:13-14: "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully m

• Ezekiel 16:44: "Behold, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you: ‘Like mother, like daughter."\

• Genesis 3:20: "The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living."

• 1 Peter 3:4: "You should be known for the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."

• Deuteronomy 4:9: "Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them."

• Luke 2:51: "And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart."