meditating on motherhood

I've been blessed with some extremely good examples of biblical motherhood in my lifetime. In my current hometown I've got some amazing mothers to look up to, ask for advice, and run to with my concerns and questions. But no matter how much I've seen from other women and long to imitate them, I can't borrow grace given to another woman (to loosely quote Amy Carmichael, another amazing mother) to apply to my own life. I can't help but think that out of my heart will flow whatever has been poured into it - when our little one is born, when she is crying for a 2 a.m. feeding, or when she's going through the "terrible two's" and all the stages of life beyond.

So while I'm waiting (rather impatiently) for the "aha! this is labor!" moment to arrive, I finally started my chronological study of motherhood from the Bible that I've been meaning to begin for about 9 months. :-) Procrastination is a delightful tool of the enemy. I bet Screwtape mentioned that in one of his letters.

With ginger ale in hand (oh for the day coffee will be my friend again!), I'm sharing some of the things I fell in love with while reading the Bible and Matthew Henry's Commentary. Only made it to Genesis 21, but hey - there's a lot of day left. I'll just share some of the highlights, so you don't have to read through my entire journal entry. ;-)

In Genesis 4:1 we see the concept that children are a gift from the Lord. Eve said she had gotten a child by the hand of the Lord. He gives, and sometimes He takes away. But His gift is always good. Matthew Henry says "it doubles and sanctifies our comfort in [children] when we see them coming to us from the hand of God, who will not forsake the works and gifts of His own hand" (emphasis added).

Genesis 7:13 - Noah and his wife and sons and their wives all got into the ark together, and we always think about blessed Noah and his faith to do what God told him to despite the odds. Yay Noah! But what about his wife? She could have been stubborn, or told him "honey you're embarrassing us in front of the neighbors," or put her foot down at living in such close quarters with stinky animals. But she obeyed God's direction even though it didn't get directed to her - she trusted God's direction even when it came through her husband, and she followed him onto that boat. I wonder how easily his sons and daughters in law would have followed Dad onto the ark if Mom had been putting up a fight. But she obeyed, and they followed, and they were all saved by God's grace.

Genesis 16 - I'm skipping over the obvious and beautiful lesson of Sarah and Abram's faith in obtaining a child... and going right to the side story of Hagar. Hagar experienced first hand the fact that "sometimes God leads mothers into the wilderness, and there meets them" (Matthew Henry). She lived out the beautiful love story of Hosea 2:14-15:

¹⁴"Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

And isn't it comforting to see that when we have either sinned, or been sinned against and are suffering the consequences, God is still at work caring for our children? He provided for Ishmael regardless of the circumstances of his birth.

Finally... Genesis 21:8 is a verse I've read countless times and skipped over with a "what's the big deal" attitude? Everyone gets weaned... unless they are crazy weirdos who nurse their kids til they're full grown. I'd hate to see the plastic surgery that poor woman would need!

But Matthew Henry was thankfully a more godly man and deeper thinker than I am. So that is why this verse is getting mentioned on this blog today - hear what he says:

"Abraham made a special feast on the day that he (Isaac) was weaned because God's blessing upon the nursing of children, and the preservation of them through the perils of the infant age, are signal providences of the care and tenderness of the divine providence." He goes on to mention Psalm 22:9-10:

Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

The point isn't breastfeeding or bottle feeding. The point is that from infancy, God uses the utter dependence of a child upon his mother and father for his existence in the "small, daily things" to teach him that God is faithful and will not neglect or fail him. What a beautiful way to show the glory and beauty of God to a little heathen :-) who doesn't know enough yet to know her right hand from her left.