The Power Of A Mother

His mother kept all these things in her heart.

Luke 2:51

The person who most influenced John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was likely his mother, Susanna. She was fiercely devoted to the ten of her eighteen children who survived infancy, spending time with a different child each night of the week to school him or her in matters of the faith. In a letter to his mother as an adult, Wesley said, “Oh, Mother, what I’d give for a Thursday evening!” When John and Charles Wesley consulted their mother before going to America as missionaries in 1735, she said, “If I had twenty sons, I should rejoice if they were all so employed, though I should never see them more.”

It has been suggested that the discipline and love of Susanna Wesley’s household was formative in shaping the structure of early Methodism through her influence on John and Charles. How powerful is the influence of a mother! The bond between mother and child seems to be God-designed, the perfect union of potential and the power to make it spring forth. The simple, daily influences of prayer, persuasion, and promoting of godly values are the most powerful tools a mother can use to unleash the potential of her children.