Mother's and Children

 

Every child you give birth to is special, your firstborn is a brand-new experience that holds more emotions than I can possibly find adjectives for.  We mothers have such influence over our children that will one day grow to be adults. We can use that influence for good or unfortunately for evil.

We start praying for our children before they are even born, and those prayers last a lifetime. God gave Jochebed, Miriam, Naomi, Ruth, Mary and you and I the courage we need to journey forward in His plans for our kids, even when they come as a surprise. 

The early chapters of the Bible are filled with motherhood stories from Eve to Sarah to Rebekah to Rachel and Leah, but we rarely see these mothers interacting with their children. Leah is the only mom whom the Bible mentions as having a daughter. Exodus is the first book that shows a mother/daughter pair interacting.  

Pharaoh commanded that every male child born into a Hebrew family was to be thrown into the Nile River.  Can you imagine what it was like for Jochebed not knowing if she would give birth to another girl or to a boy? I wonder if she talked to Miriam about the fear she carried. I know I talk to my girls quite often about what’s happening in my world.

When she does give birth the Bible is clear that Moses was special.

Exodus 2:2 tells us that Jochebed saw that he was a fine child. She was given a divine insight into her baby boy and it gave her courage. She had the strength to disobey the command of Pharaoh to take her child’s life, instead she hid her baby for 3 months. It is a familiar story that she puts Moses in a basket and places him in the Nile River. It is then his sister Miriam takes a significant risk, she sees a way to reunite her younger brother with their mother and keep him safe. Jochebed fought to save her son, Miriam stepped up to protect him and Pharaoh's own daughter took pity on him and spared his life. All three women played a major role in Moses' life.

God is always doing the unexpected. The story didn’t end with a young prince being raised as a slave but of the slave raised as a young prince. Jochebed’s faith filled her with assurance that God would protect and prepare her child for big things to come, and boy did HE!

(Read Exodus for the full story.)

The point is Jochebed’s love for her son outweighed her fear of a horrific ruler. We will do anything to protect our children, even letting them go, for them to walk out the plans God has for them.

Then there’s Ruth and her relationship with Naomi who became her second mother.   Naomi moves to a foreign land with her family and suffers devastation when her husband and both her sons die. Naomi’s situation became dire as the three men that would keep her safe and secure were now gone. In her desperation and grief, she decides to move back to her homeland. Although she was grieving, she could see God’s hand in her life and she decided to leave alone. She lets her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah know if they had any chance of a prosperous life they should stay in Moab where they could find new husbands.  Naomi obviously loved these women as she selflessly stopped to think about the life they could still have with family, children, and the security of a new marriage.

Too often our society feeds us the poisonous narrative of the hostile mother-in-law, but that is not the experience of many women. I call Alex, my son’s wife, my daughter-in-love and genuinely love her as my own. Ruth moves to a country where she will be an immigrant and stranger because of her desire to remain with Naomi. Naomi was the first person in this story to talk about the Lord, and that became a consistent theme in Naomi and Ruth’s relationship. Ruth was consciously leaving everything she knew behind and clearly choosing to honor and serve the God of Naomi. There was something about Naomi that caused Ruth to want to follow her and her God.

You don’t have to give birth to a child to have a daughter, God started adoption from the beginning. We are all adopted into the family of God.

Now let’s look at a mother and son relationship that has both a positive and negative side. The positive as inspiration and encouragement for mothers seeking God’s will for their children, the negative a clear warning against scheming to help a child “skip ahead.” I have been guilty of both…..

The Bible provides beautiful examples of brave, humble, righteous mothers willing to surrender their own hopes and dreams in favor of what God has planned even when they can’t see the plan.

Rebekah’s life started with incredible promise, but she definitely got off track. She was a bride directly chosen by God for Abraham’s beloved son Isaac. When Rebekah finally gets pregnant, she doesn’t have an easy time and she goes to God in prayer asking for His explanation about the struggle. Rebekah learns she will have 2 babies and they will both represent a separate strong nation.

Honestly, I just wanted my sons to grow up strong, healthy and be able to provide well for their families.

Isaac and Rebekah as parents started using their children as their main emotional connection instead of each other. This is dangerous for them and something for us to look out for. We should not allow our children to take the position of our spouse no matter how much we love them.

You will have to read the book of Genesis to learn the whole story but the gist of it is Isaac loved Esau more than Jacob and Rebekah loved Jacob more than Esau. Rebekah came up with a deceitful plan, to rob her own first-born Esau of his blessing. She puts together a treacherous scheme to fool her husband into giving the younger son the birthright guaranteeing a double portion of the inheritance. What drove Rebekah to such deceitful behavior? God Himself told her that her younger son would be served by his older brother down the line. Did she doubt God’s word? Did she think she needed to give God help?

I hesitate to ask that last question as I know I have “helped” God in the past. I have doubted promises God has given me regarding my children and have been told by my Heavenly Father to butt out.

In this story we see a mother using deception because of her competitive, controlling spirit that would play out, not for good, in Jacob’s future decisions.

Jacob is not a victim here; he was a grown man and in on this shameful plan to deceive, not just some random old man, but his own father.

 I will be honest, there are times when I’m praying to God about my child, and He reminds me they are not children, they are adults.

Our next mother is Bathsheba. The quote that comes to mind when I hear her name is “Oh what a tangled web we’ve weaved.”  You will have to read 2 Samuel for the whole story. 

Condensed version, King David has an affair with a woman named Bathsheba, one of his faithful soldiers’ wives. He then has him killed in battle to cover his sin. Bathsheba gets pregnant and David brings her into his house, and she becomes his wife, however, the thing David did displeased the Lord.  That is a chilling statement!

Later Nathan the prophet calls out King David’s sin and tells him the child he had conceived with Bathsheba would die. Despite all of King David’s prayers the child dies. The story doesn’t talk at all about Bathsheba as all of this is happening. What did she know about any of this? Did she know anything about how her husband died? Whether she did or not, how devastating is this whole story! Her new husband was a liar and a murderer and her innocent child, who had nothing to do with any of the decisions made by his father, suffered for it. I can’t imagine her pain. The grief of her only child wasting away in sickness you can’t stop, in cries that you can’t comfort.

As a mother you have experienced this tragedy firsthand, or you may have walked through it with someone else. Our grief tells God that we cherish His gifts to us, we cherish them so much that we sometimes can’t imagine our lives without them. Too often mothers who lose their children, especially before they are born feel they need to hide their anguish.

2 Samuel 12:24 tells us “Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon.”

This part of her story is when we see her influence in shaping the nation of Israel. She is the only one of a handful of women referenced in the lineage of Jesus. Solomon was not the oldest of David’s sons, but he had favor and when it came to fighting for him Bathsheba was a lioness. Her skills determined Solomon's place on the throne. The difference between her plan and Rebekah’s was she was straight with King David. Her life over the years made her an eloquent, fearless woman who was aware of what was going on around her and brave enough to advocate for her son Solomon.

Bathsheba had a difficult life and her son treated her with respect and honor. He had a throne brought in for her so she could sit at his right hand, the place of honor reserved for the king’s chief counselor.

This position of an honored mother/queen was new. Solomon saw his mother’s devotion for him over the years and it seems Bathsheba and Solomon’s bond may have elevated “the mothers of kings.” When we look at the long list of the rulers of Judah in the Bible, the introduction of each king follows with a new format.

1 Kings 14:21 Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel in which to put his name. His mother’s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.

From that point on, in every single introduction of a king of Judah, the mother’s name is mentioned alongside the king’s! The term queen in the record of the kings of Judah means, not the wife of the king, but the kings’ mother. Such honor was paid by Solomon to his mom that the tradition of the queen mother was forever established in the story of Israel.

What a blessing for us to be known as chief counselors for our children, giving them wise Godly advice. Sometimes that advice goes against our own plans and desires. I said something to my daughter today that didn't line up with God’s current plan and I had to apologize for putting my hopes before God’s direction.

Whatever your story with your children, my advice to you is, when you’re wrong, always say you’re sorry and make sure to continually say, I love you. The rest will work out because God promises:

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

 

Happy Mother’s Day!

*notes taken from The Mothers and Daughters of the Bible Speak by Shannon Bream