Taking a look at some May holidays

Since the beginning of this month and almost within this past week, we’ve celebrated Cinco de Mayo (May 5), the National Day of Prayer (May 7) and Mother’s Day (May 10).

Cinco de Mayo is often confused with Mexico’s independence day. However, that’s celebrated Sept. 16 to commemorate Mexico’s declaration of independence from Spain in 1810. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla, which took place in 1862 against French invaders. The defeat of the French was short-lived, and the second Battle of Puebla a year later didn’t go so well for the Mexicans. There were actually two Franco-Mexican Wars, and they’re an interesting part of history, but there wasn’t anything spectacular to celebrate. In fact, to me, the reasons for the wars were petty and the outcomes rather disappointing. You can read about them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastry_War and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_French_intervention_in_Mexico.

Satan is like that French army. Even after Jesus overcame him in the wilderness, Satan sought an opportunity to strike again (Luke 4:1-13). He’ll look for ways to defeat us, too, until Jesus comes back (1 Peter 5:8-9; Job 1:6-7; 2:1-2; Hebrews 2:9-18; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28). Jesus overcome Satan’s onslaught using the Word of God and prayer, as did Job, sort of, and so can we (Matthew 26:36-44; Luke 22:31-32; 1 John 4:4; Job 6:8-10).

In 1952, Congress authorized the president to set aside a day annually as the National Day of Prayer, and in 1988 Congress designated the first Thursday of May for the holiday. It happened this year, but I didn’t hear much about it. Maybe there’s so much childish strife in Washington, the news media mostly overlooked it. It doesn’t matter how bad things have been in the past, they really are going from bad to worse (John 16:33; 2 Timothy 3:14; Matthew 24:22). Our National Day of Prayer should be more important than ever because of national and international strife and COVID-19.

Finally, this past Sunday was Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day celebrations have taken place long before the U.S. holiday, which began about 110 years ago after being initiated by a daughter to honor her mother who’d been a peace activist during the Civil War in West Virginia (a border state), caring for wounded soldiers on both sides. That mother also had started Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.

Making peace and binding wounds when children battle is a Godly trait all of us should wisely exhibit more often (Matthew 5:9; James 3:13-18). Perhaps, aside from natural disasters, like COVID-19, there’d be a lot less strife in the world, and when things like COVID-19 do happen, we’d be more prepared to care for those affected, our prayers to minimize the suffering would be heard, we’d recover more rapidly, and Satan wouldn’t be able to use natural disasters in his onslaughts against us by blaming God.

How’s your prayer life? Are you close enough to God that he hears and answers your prayers?

Leonard Lauriault is a member of the Church of Christ in Logan who writes about faith for the Quay County Sun. Contact him at [email protected]