The following resource is from Desiring God.org.

Before I pray, just a personal addition of my own welcome to the mothers among us on all the campuses and I want to take special

note of the white roses that are on all of our campuses to my right and left and tell you in case you don't know why those are there.

We do this every Mother's Day weekend in order to acknowledge the sorrows of the day.

We think of miscarriages,

of stillbirths, we think of lost little ones from leukemia,

we think of lost 60 year old children.

So those bouquets of white roses are there

for you to come and take one when we're done.

And please, don't hesitate to do that.

And let it be sweet.

Let it be sweet.

I hope enough time has gone by that perhaps the pain has mellowed into a

sweet memory and so market would be good for you probably at least that's our intention.

So we're glad you're here all of the the. And I'm thankful for my mother with Jesus, and I'm

thankful for Noel, who's with me, and what a gift to have raised five children together.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, here we are now. To meet you in the word and to be helped. So speak to us. Help me to be faithful to the Bible and to be humble to the Bible and to be humble before the Bible, submitted to the Bible, to

exult over the truth standing forth from the Bible. So honor yourself now in this moment I pray in

Jesus name. Amen. When I returned from the leave of absence a few months ago.

Noel and I sat down with the elder care committee

who's to watch over our pace of life

...