Mom Strong

MOM STRONG!

[Slide One] One day a young daughter came up to her Mother saying, "Mom, there are five things I'm going to be when I grow up." "Oh? What are they?" "I'm going to be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, an archeologist, and an actress." "Wow, that's quite a list. But what about being a mom?" The daughter thought for a moment then answered, "No, that's too hard."

Ally Walker is an acclaimed actress who has worked many years in movies and TV. Being an actor is hard work and often involves long hours. But this mother of three said, "Being a mom is the hardest job I've ever had; but it's the most rewarding job I've ever had."

I have a feeling most moms share this sentiment. Moms can handle a lot; moms are tough. Army slogan, "Army Strong". There's Army Strong and then there's Mom Strong.

1) Mom strong starts with giving birth.

Being mom strong starts with just the fact that she has given birth. Men aren't that strong. If men could have babies every family would have an only child. Us guys don't get it; do we? [labor slide]. We might think we know what pain is but until we, as the moms would say, "pass a bowling ball through your you-know-what", then we don't know what pain is.

Two Dutch TV hosts who were sick of women saying men could never handle the worst kind of pain there is decided to find out for themselves. With cameraman in tow, Dennis Storm and Valerio Zeno, head to a cushy birthing center in Amsterdam, where two technicians hooked them up to a labor contraction simulator. The idea was to see if they could endure the pain for just two hours ( a short time compared to how long the average mom is in labor).

At first, both men were laughing. Then the technician says, “If you’re laughing we haven’t set it high enough.” At one point Storm asks Zeno if he should hold his hand for comfort. “No, that’s okay,” Zeno says, grimacing. After just 15 minutes, Zeno remarks there’s no way he could withstand the pain for two hours.

Both continue on, writhing, moaning and expressing disbelief. At one point the attendant tells Zeno to focus on a spot on the ceiling to get through the contraction. “I can’t focus,” he says. After trying some supplemental oxygen, Zeno finally said, “I can’t continue,”.

When asked to describe the experience, Zeno said, “I thought it was torture. I won’t dare get a woman pregnant.” Some moms have suggested this procedure be given to all fathers-to-be. Would any of you moms out there like to see your husbands go through this procedure?

Jeremiah understood labor pain. Jer. 30:6, "Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor, every face turned deathly pale?" Maybe it's because they went through this procedure!

Isaiah had a clue about labor pain too. When he was giving his prophecy against Babylon he compared what they would be feeling to a mom's labor pains. Isa 13:8, "Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame."

In another prophecy against Babylon, he said in 21:3, "At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor." The bible writers realized the pain that moms went through giving birth. Mom strong.

2) Bible moms who were Mom Strong.

After birth, the pain doesn't stop there. Then you have all the sacrifices and hardships that come with motherhood. I don't need to tell the moms here that motherhood can be pretty rough sometimes. Bible moms had it rough too. Let's take a look at a few of them.

We start with the first mom; Eve. How did she have it rough? Well, let's see-her older son murdered her younger son. Then, as a consequence, Cain was driven away from the land to live as a restless wanderer. So really, Eve lost both her sons. That's quite a bit to deal with, wouldn't you say?

But God had compassion on Eve for her great loss and gave her another son, Seth. She said, "God has given me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." And according to Gen. 5:4, Adam and Eve had more sons and daughters over time.

Another mom who had it rough was Job's wife Dinah (her name is given in the Targum-Rabbinical explanations of the scriptures around the time of Jesus). Typically Job gets all the attention and his wife gets a bad rep. for being the one to try to get Job to curse God and die.