The third most important question a person can ask of himself or herself is whether or not to have a baby.

The second most important question is whether or not to get married. The most important question anyone can ask is, “What do I do with Jesus?”

Granted, for most people, the third question is implied in the second one; but for others, marriage and children are two different issues.

Besides Jesus and your mate, nothing can change your life so totally like a baby or an adopted child.

Months before his actual arrival, a baby may announce his forthcoming through his mother with nausea and vomiting. He may do it with bleeding and tiredness. He certainly does it by putting weight on his mother, literally disfiguring her in the process. He changes the way she sits, stands and walks. More, he changes her tastes, her schedule and her sleeping habit. He may even change her outlook towards the world and at life itself.

Moments before his actual arrival, a baby lets his mother know by giving her pain. The pain comes in waves. It picks up both in intensity and frequency, as if the baby is shouting louder and louder, “I am coming, I am coming, I AM COMING.” Most mothers are so tired and exhausted by the pain and physical effort of trying to force out their babies that by the time the babies are ready to come out, they are barely conscious of it.

Oh, the price a mother has to pay and this is before a baby’s birth.

When a mother holds her baby in her arms for the time, after all the terrible things the baby has done to her during the past nine months, she smiles at him, cuddles him and treats him as the most precious thing in the whole wide world.

The day the baby goes home from the hospital marks the beginning of a total change of life for the whole family, especially the mother. The father may still sleep through the night, but not the mother. The mother is forever alert to the potential cry of her baby. She hears things from her baby that nobody else can hear. At a moment’s notice, she drops whatever she is doing and attends to the needs of her baby. She is ready around the clock: to feed, to bathe, to clean, to dress, to hold, to sing, to talk, and to pace. She repeats these tasks day after day, week after week and month after month.

If you were to pause to count the number of diapers a mother has changed for her baby until he is out of them, you would be amazed. Let’s say a mother has to change an average of seven diapers a day for her precious angel. Let’s also assume the baby is normal, that means he has to be in diapers for about two years. That comes to 5,110 diapers. If you and I were to say “thank you” to our mothers for every diaper she changed for us, we would have to keep on saying “thank you” for more than an hour.

After the days of diapers are over, then comes the period known notorious as the “terrible two’s” and you know what that means.

In the process of growing up, a child asks his mother more questions than she has answers. Innocent questions like, “How come the sky is blue,” “How come the cows eat grass,” “How come your nose is so big,” and “Will I grow up in heaven?”

Mothers are very special persons. They believe in their children because they see in them something that is invisible to other mortals. They love because they cannot do anything less. The things they do for their children are beyond reason and logic. The only “reason” I can see in their faith and love for their children is that they are their mothers.

Do you need a reason to take your mother out for dinner or call her on the phone this Mother’s Day? Emulate your Mother. Go beyond reason and logic. Do it because she is your Mother.