This Sunday was Mother's Day 2008, first celebrated 100 years ago to the day in Grafton, West Virginia, and proclaimed a national holiday by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. Its founder was Anna Jarvis, unmarried and never a mother herself, but deeply appreciative of the "truth, purity and broad charity of mother love." I wanted to pay tribute to my own mother and other mothers nearest to me but every time I tried to say something the thoughts were too precious for words. So I decided instead to simply announce their names and mentally picture them walking across a stage to receive an award. Please feel free to call your own honor roll of mothers in this imaginary celebration--it is open to all!

Susie Smith: My paternal grandmother Susie married Ed Fudge, a North Alabama sharecropper 30 years her senior whom she taught to read using the Bible. Beginning in 1914 at age 19-20, she raised eight children to serve God, dying at age 57 when I was three years old. I remember visiting her house in the country--an unpainted wooden shack, with an empty thread-spool for a door-knob and a door-latch that one opened by pulling a piece of string. Delia O'Neal: My maternal grandmother Delia married Will Short of Kansas when both in their 20's. Together they went to Africa in 1921 where they raised five children and served God for the next 60+ years. They lived in my home town for one year during a furlough when I was about 11-12 years old.

Sybil Short: Sybil, my mother, was born and raised in Africa. She met my father Bennie Lee Fudge at Abilene Christian College and married him the day after their graduation in 1943. Mom raised six children during 30+ years in Athens, Ala. After my father died in 1972 she returned to Africa to help care for her parents. She then lived in California with a sister; married Joe Dewhirst of Ohio and lived there 20 years.Twice-widowed, she moved to Mississippi to live near a different sister. Now 85, she visits the "elderly," occasionally teaches a ladies Bible class and is writing her memoirs for posterity if not for the public. Her proper tribute awaits the Last Day. Celia Taylor: Mother of my wife, Celia actively and cheerfully served God and his children for about 80 years in Middle Tennessee. She was married for 50+ years to Jamie Locke, whom besides her own mother and another Christian friend she cared for during strokes, other ailments and final years. Now 96, she lives in a special home a few minutes from us and has the loving attention of her only child, Sara Faye.

Sara Faye Locke: A Southern belle from Franklin, Tennessee and mother of our children Melanie and Jeremy, she has been my faithful companion and partner for 41 years. I could never say enough to do her justice. Melanie Fudge and Kristy Lang: My daughter and daughter-in-law respectively and mothers evenly of my four grandchildren. Melanie married Michael Simpson of Nashville, Tenn., and they parent Julia (6) and Zeke (2-1/2) near us in Katy/Houston, Texas. Kristy grew up in Loveland, Colo., married my son Jeremy and they parent Brynna (3) and Addy (1-1/2) in Murphy/Dallas, Texas. Both are godly women bridging the faith to a new generation. To all these mothers, living and dead, I give special honor, and for them and for all they mean to me, I give God sincere thanks!