Just Bee Mommy

Just Bee A Mommy

I. OPENING ILLUSTRATION:

One Sunday, a couple of years ago (2018), Ben and Jackee Belnap noticed an important envelope containing $1,060 mysteriously missing. For the previous year, University of Utah football fans had been saving money to pay back Ben's parents for season tickets, and that money was in the envelope.

Ben and Jackee started tearing the house apart searching for the cash. “I'm digging through the trash,” Ben Belnap said, “and Jackee hollers, ‘I found it.’” It was in the shredder in a thousand tiny pieces. Immediately they knew Leo, their 2-year-old, was the culprit. He had been helping Jackee shred junk mail and documents. Apparently, he thought he was being helpful with the envelope full of cash. First, his mother cried. Then, she laughed. She said, “As devastated and as sick as we were, this was one of those moments where you just have to laugh.”

Soon after that, Ben Belnap contacted the Treasury Department, which has a “Mutilated Currency Division.” They “redeem” burned, rodent-chewed, or deteriorated money as a free service to the public. They handle 30,000 claims a year, redeeming more than $30 million in mutilated cash. They told Ben to send the shredded money to Washington in Ziploc bags.

In the meantime, Mom did not let Leo use the shredder anymore, making the comment that “this will make a great wedding story one day.” (Meagan Flynn, “A 2-year-old shredded $1,060 of his family’s cash. His mom cried — until she laughed,” The Washington Post, 10-5-18; www.PreachingToday.com)

There are moments when things get shredded beyond what we can repair. It is in those moments when we need one of the greatest gifts God has given humankind, mother.

The time of the judges in ancient Israel was a time when the nation found itself in one messy situation after another, often because of their own lack of maturity.

II. TEXT:

Judges 4:1-9 (ESV)

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. 2 And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3 Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years. 4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5 She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6 She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. 7 And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?” 8 Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” 9 And she said, “I will surely go with you.

Judges 5:7 (ESV)

"The villagers ceased in Israel; they ceased to be until I arose; I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel."

III. INTRODUCTION:

Happy Mother's Day! Here are some Mother's Day facts:

1. Mother's Day is on a different day every year. But, it is important that we do not forget it. The Bible commands us to honor our mother's. Keeping this day is a great way to put this command into practice.

2. The top gifts that mother's want for Mother's Day are pretty simple according to a 2021 YouGov poll. A card, flowers and/or a special experience with family.

3. The average age for first time mother's is rising.

4. Lots of Americans go out to eat for Mother's Day. In 2018, 87 million went to a restaurant according to the National Restaurant Association.

5. Mother's Day, like Easter and Christmas, is one of the most popular churchgoing days.

6. Mother's Day was originally a day for women to protest against war.

7. It is a popular day for phone calls. Mom's want to hear our voices.

8. Americans spend billions on Mother's Day.

9. Americans spend more on Mother's Day than on Father's Day.

10. According to Salary.com stay at home moms should be making six figures, if they actually got paid for all that they do. Think about what single mothers who also work outside the home should make.

11. Roughly one-fourth of moms in the U.S. are raising their children alone.

12. According to Hallmark, Mother's Day is the third largest card sending day of the year.