Mother’s Apron Strings
"My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck." -- Prov. 6:20–21
I have frequently heard it said of some boy, "He is tied to his mother’s apron strings." Sometimes this is said in ridicule of a boy. Yet it is one of the highest commendations any boy can receive.
When we speak of mother’s apron strings we mean mother’s love, mother’s teaching, mother’s example, mother’s influence. Mother’s apron strings are the strings that bind us to God and the better things of life. How strong these strings are! What a distance they reach! Mother may have passed on to the other side, but her apron strings stretch across the Great Divide.
In a log cabin in southern Indiana a mother was dying. "Abe," she said, "love everybody, hinder nobody, never lie, never drink, never steal, and some day the world will be glad that you have lived." It was a long distance from that little cabin in the woods of Indiana to the White House in Washington, but the apron strings of Nancy Hanks reached all the way. Years later Abraham Lincoln said: "All that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
A boy may sometimes be ridiculed for being tied to his mother’s apron strings, but there is nothing better to which he can be tied. There is nothing to be ashamed of about it. Rather it is something to be proud of. The boy who ties to his mother’s apron strings, and stays tied to them, will some day be glad.
Here is the place for you to tie up, boys. To be tied up to mother’s love, to mother’s teaching, example, and influence, is the best thing in the world for you. These are the strings that will hold you fast, if you stay tied to them. Never try to untie yourself from them. Rather, as Solomon says, "Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck."
