Read Proverbs 31:27-28

What does motherhood require?

Transparent tenderness, authentic spirituality, inner confidence, unselfish love, and self-control.

Quite a list, isn't it? Almost more than we should expect. Perhaps that explains why Erma Bombeck used to say that motherhood takes 180 movable parts and three pairs of hands and three sets of eyes...and, I might add, the grace of God.

If you happen to be a mother, here's one guy who applauds your every effort. Five cheers for all you do!...

Remember the Skin Horse in The Velveteen Rabbit? All his stuffing was starting to come out, his hair had been "loved off," but how valuable he was!...

Carefully kept mothers don't have secure kids. Carefully kept, untouchable "velveteen mothers" turn out fragile, selfish, untouchable children.

But unselfish, giving, secure moms somehow manage to deposit healthy, wholesome kids into our lonely, frightened society.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.