Mothers, The Mightiest of Warriors—The Pilgrims’ Story

William Bradford, one of the pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower and who served as the governor of Plymouth Colony for over 30 years, stated, “Inasmuch as the great Father…granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.”

Dear Pilgrims,

There is so much we can learn from your sacrifice and perseverance. You were willing to give up everything we so value—your jobs, your homes, your possessions and your position—for the freedom to live out your faith as your conscience directed. You undertook that treacherous voyage to freedom, a voyage that many of you did not survive. Hoping for a brighter future in a land of freedom, you brought your children with you, but even the warm embrace of loving mothers was not sufficient to protect all of the helpless infants against the bitter cold. Many of you paid a bitter price for your freedom.  Almost half of you died during the first bitter winter in America.

Despite these hardships, you were unwavering in your desire to freely worship your God and to read and teach the Bible to your children as you saw fit. What was it that you saw in this book that we cannot? The book is scattered about our homes today in all sizes, versions and colors. But we don’t cherish it as you once did. And we read it much less often. 

Pilgrim forebears, the risks you took and the sacrifices you made are foreign to us today. Faith is relatively easy and we are not required to sacrifice much to preserve it. Our choice of how to worship has a convenience you could never have imagined in England when any dissent meant punishment or imprisonment. So many of the words spoken from our pulpits do not challenge our hearts with much from that cherished book, the Bible, or stir us from our status quo comfort zones.

Can ours be the same God that you followed at such peril?

A CALL TO ACTION

Honor the courage of mothers in giving birth and protecting their children. I saw this in my wife when our daughter was critically ill with kidney failure. My wife was strong and I was weak.