The florists have been looking forward to their recliners. They finally get to recover from their busiest day of the year. You know what that is, Mother's Day. Hallmark counting on all their Mother's Day card money. Phone companies getting pretty happy. It's the busiest calling day of the year. Okay, Mother's Day, well, it only lasts a day and then it's over until next year. Oh, but not their marks on your life. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Mother's Greatest Wish." I wrote some short stories when I was a kid, and there was only one person who would listen to me read them - my Mom. And as lame as those stories may have been, she watered this wannabe writer with her encouragement. And she was my #1 fan at every activity. She even laughed at my jokes, even if she didn't always get them. I was thinking today about how our mother's voice and our mother's influence is with us for our life. It reminded me of the story of a man named John Newton. It's not a really well-known name, but what he wrote is known around the world. It's the song they play at virtually at every police and fire funeral. At times, it was the song heard almost every day at Ground Zero after September 11, 2001. If people only know one hymn, it's the one John Newton wrote - Amazing Grace. Now, no one would ever - ever - have picked John Newton as the writer of an immortal hymn. When his mother died when he was a boy, his seafaring dad took him to sea. That's where John learned the partying and the harsh ways of a sailor. As for God, well you could forget about that. Newton's cargo was human beings. Ripped from their families and chained in the belly of some death-trap slave ship. Until the day a violent storm threatened to sink his ship. In that moment when he knew where his only hope was, John Newton yelled into the storm, "My mother's God - God of mercy - save me!" And his mother's God did. More importantly, his mother's God became John Newton's God that day. His life was saved that day. But so was his soul. Because of that "amazing grace" that enabled him to say, "I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see." Over the years many a son or daughter has been the subject of many a mother's prayers. But it could be they've never chosen her God to be their God until the storm. It's when we are suddenly at the mercy of something we can't control, or we can't fix, that we finally say, "I'm not enough." And a mother's prayers are finally answered. She may not have lived to see it, but her prayers have followed us wherever we've gone. John Newton picked a pretty good word to describe a life that we're running instead of the God who gave it to us - lost. I'd still be lost, wondering why I'm here, wondering where I'm going, and what would fill the hole in my heart. If it weren't for the Man who said why He came here in our word for today from the Word of God recorded in the Bible in Luke 19:10, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost." That's what Jesus was doing when He was nailed to a cross. He said those three words that change a person's life; that change a person's eternity, "Father, forgive them." I wonder if you have ever embraced what He did on that cross for you and made the Savior your Savior; knowing that it was your sin He was intending to forgive. But He waits to come in to become your rescuer from your sin. He's come to seek you today through our being together so He could save you for now and forever. You want to know how to begin a relationship with Him? Would you go to our website and just spend a few minutes with me there? It's ANewStory.com. You pin all your hopes on Him today and tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours." And it will happen for you. If you've been so blessed to have a mother who's prayed for you, that's a powerful reason to say "Thank you" and to ask her God to save you, as He has so many. Believe me, there is no need to wait 'til the ship's coming apart.