Who's your Moma?

 

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.