Happy Mother’s Day! Sorry, that just doesn’t sound right to
me. I almost never say “Mother”-too pretentious. Mom is only slightly better,
but in my head, it’s stretched out and whiney- “Mommmmmm!” No, as a true Son of
the South, the word for the woman who gave me life is “Moma”. Yep, as is “If
Moma said it, that’s all you need to say.” And the phrase that strikes fear
into the heart of every man and boy, “If Moma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!”
Proverbs 31:27-29
She looks well to the ways of her household and does not
eat the bread of idleness. Her Children rise up and call her blessed; her
husband also praises her; “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass
them all.”
That’s a pretty awesome scripture but have any of you read
that full chapter? It’s a listing of the attributes that call this woman
blessed. It reads like about 5 job descriptions all rolled into one big, huge
job. That is a pretty difficult model to live up to, so I’m thinking we should
look to other models to see what we should be looking for “blessed”.
Let’s start at the beginning:
Eve: Moma “Ground Zero” – let’s see, gave her husband some
bad fruit, kids squabbled and competed against each other. One actually killed
the other. But to be fair, no one had ever been a Moma before – no Dr. Spock or
What to expect when you’re expecting-not even a Moma to call and ask, “WHAT IS
GOING ON??!!”
Sarah (Abraham’s wife): Lied to the King of Egypt about
being married, laughed when God said she would have a child, drove her maid out
to the dessert to die out of jealousy-ok, maybe not her.
Rebecca (Isaac’s wife): helper her son Jacob trick his
brother out of his birthright, then helped him trick Isaac into giving his blessing-got
Jacob sent out to the country to get a wife to let things cool down. Jacob
married…
Rachel: who when they were coming back home, stole from her
father’s house and when the father’s men came to search her tent, covered it
all up, gut under the blanket, and said they couldn’t come in because she was “in
a womanly way.”
Ok, striking out here. Let’s get out of the Patriarchs:
Bathsheba: wife of David, man after God’s own heart, right?
Moma to wise King Solomon-hmm, affair, pregnant, David had husband killed,
child out of wed lock died.
Ok, New Testament. Let’s look at the main Moma of all,
Mary. I mean that’s perfection, right? Blessed above all women and all that?
God Himself chose her to carry and nurture His Son-Yet…
When Jesus was 12, they did go a full day’s journey before
realizing He wasn’t with them. I mean left at the store is one thing, but they
didn’t find him for another 3 days.
Another time-The wedding at Cana is considered Jesus first miracle
and marked a change in His ministry as He began to let people know who He
really was. So, what happened? In John, chapter 2:
The family was at a wedding feast, and due to either poor preparation
or REALLY thirsty guests, they ran out of wine. Major faux paus there. So, Mary
goes to Jesus and tells Him “They have no wine.”. Jesus says “What has that got
to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” What does Mary do? Tells the servants
“Go do whatever my son tells you.” Now Jesus is kind of roped into it, cause a
good boy does what Moma says, right? Honor your father and mother? So, first miracle,
water into wine.
Interestingly enough, some people think this may have
started His ministry earlier than He intended. In Matthew, there’s the story of
Jesus casting out demons from a wild man. The demons actually have enough guts
to ask Jesus “Are you casting us out BEFORE THE APPOINTED TIME?” so they asked
to be cast into a heard of pigs instead, which did NOT sit well with the
townspeople. So typical, they have a man cured of his madness, and they’re
worried about livestock. Course there’s also the fact that these good Jewish townsfolk
had a herd of pigs, but that’s another story.
You can look all through scripture to find the perfect
wife, Moma, woman, or man for that matter, and other than Jesus, they just are
not there. Truth is God has a history of using people that have been broken,
used or hurt. It is in that brokenness that His strength shows through. So how
did these women, and others in the Bible get to be women that could be called
blessed?
They knew that ultimately; God was in control. Eve, with
all her troubles and heartache, never lost sight of the promise God made, that
salvation would come through her descendants; In cursing the serpent, God said the serpent's destruction would be through Her Offspring. Even after the death of Abel,
she believed and trusted God’s purpose. She knew God would make a way.
Mary never lost sight of that either. God chose to do something
with her that by nature was impossible, she knows what the people would think
of her, but in spite to the fact that there was no way this promise could be
fulfilled, God made a way. Even when the wise men told her” A sword would pierce
her own heart also” she believed. Even when she saw Jesus hanging from the cross
and telling John to take her as his own mother, she knows God would make a way.
And three days later, what a way He made.
You don’t have to be the perfect “Leave it to Beaver” mom,
pearls and heels ready, multi-tasking better than the best CEO. You do the best
you can, you put it all in God’s hands, and you trust God enough to leave it
there. I remember a preacher once telling me “In prayer we leave our problems
at the feet of Jesus. Trouble is we tend to pick them back up on the way out”.
Trust that the Lord will do as He said. Trust that God will make a way.
Course, I’m not just talking mothers now. All of us tend to
try to make things happen on our own, and the trouble with that is we, on our own,
will always fail. That’s because we try to fit our plans into God’s will, and
not His plans into ours. God will make a way, usually in spite of what we do!
So, here’s to all the “Mothers”, the Mommmmms, the Mama’s-We
love you, we appreciate all you do, and we place you in the light of God’s
love. And for every moment of doubt, don’t worry. God will make a way.
