Erma Bombeck writes;
For the first 4 or 5 years after I had children, I considered motherhood a temporary condition -- not a calling. It was a time of my life set aside for exhaustion and long hours. It would pass. Then one afternoon, with 3 kids in tow, I came out of a supermarket pushing a cart (with four wheels that went in opposite directions) when my toddler son got away from me. Just outside the door, he ran toward a machine holding bubble gum in a glass dome. In a voice that shattered glass he shouted, "Gimme! Gimme!" I told him I would give him what for if he didn’t stop shouting and get in the car.
As I physically tried to pry his body from around the bubble gum machine, he pulled the entire thing over. Glass and balls of bubble gum went all over the parking lot. We had now attracted a sizable crowd. I told him he would never see a cartoon as long as he lived, and if he didn’t control his temper, he was going to be making license plates for the state. He tried to stifle his sobs as he looked around at the staring crowd. Then he did something that I was to remember for the rest of my life. In his helpless quest for comfort, he turned to the only one he trusted his emotions with -- me. He threw his arms around my knees and held on for dear life. I had humiliated him, chastised him, and berated him, but I was still all he had.
That single incident defined my role. I was a major force in this child’s life. Sometimes we forget how important stability is to a child. I’ve always told mine, "The easiest part of being a mother is giving birth.... the hardest part is showing up for it each day..."
Mother’s day is traditionally the day when children give something back to their mothers for all the spit they produce to wash dirty faces, all the old gum they held in their hands, all the noses they wipe, and all the bloody knees they "made well" with a kiss. This is the day mothers are rewarded for washing all those sheets in the middle of the night, driving kids to school when they missed the bus, and enduring all the football games in the rain. It’s appreciation day for making your children finish something they said they couldn’t do, not believing them when they said, "I hate you," and sharing their good times and their bad times. Their cards probably won’t reflect it, but what they are trying to say is, "Thank you for showing up." [1]
There have been some great mothers in history. Of course there was Eve; she got things going. There was Jesus’ mother, Mary. We must certainly be grateful for her stand against abortion.
More recently there is the mother of John Wesley. Susanna Wesley is reputed to have spent time every week giving individual attention to each of her 17 children. She spent an hour with each child; that way all of her children felt special. (I wonder who was corralling the other 16 kids while she was focused on one?)
My own mom knew how to make me feel special. There was never a doubt in my mind that she knew all about me; she KNEW ME! Somehow she always seemed to know what was on my mind (good or bad). It was like she was everywhere at once. My mom was like God,
• omnipresent – she was everywhere;
• she was omniscient, knowing all;
• she was omnipotent, my backside can attest!
My Mom – I couldn’t hide myself, my secrets or my posterior when needed.
Today full-time motherhood is just about summarily dismissed as wasting your precious time. It is as if raising tomorrow’s generation of leaders, places a woman in some inferior category of less-than-fulfilled womanhood. Moms who specialize in the home are made to feel cheated if they are not being fulfilled in some position in business.
The American workplace is filled with women. That is not bad. As in most churches, were it not for the influence and elbow-grease of women, the doors would have closed long ago. The problem is that we have seen a severe decline in full-time moms over the last number of decades. It is no small coincidence that paralleling the decrease in traditional families (working dad, homemaking mom), we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in teenage crime, child abuse, underage unmarried pregnancies and divorce.
Now, we cannot lay those facts entirely at the feet of America’s women. Mostly it is our fault – that vague unidentified culprit we call society. Culturally, we have said success means having more – a bigger payday. In the name of materialism we have robbed the cradle of that which it most needs – Mom’s hand.
Motherhood is a full-time job under the best of conditions. Moms need several PhD’s to be prepared to deal with two-year olds. Think of the tasks – psychologist, warden, doctor, counselor – Moms have a tough job!
When I was a toddler my folks moved from city life to the sticks, as we called it. There was a small house, and lots of trees. Dad cleared them away with a hand axe. Each evening after work my father would chop a few more trees, stacking them in a pile in the back yard. As the pile grew, my older brother and I were warned to stay away from it (who knew what was lurking underneath?).
Mom knew me. She kept an eye on me. But not even my mom was perfect. One day she looked out the back window just a moment too late. All she saw was my feet pointing skyward as I slipped beneath the top layer of the pile! Motherhood is a tough assignment!
What moms have to deal with requires they be prepared for a high calling. On the other hand, the wages of that calling, performed with attention to, and submission under the will of God, are an incredible blessing.
This morning’s text from the Bible describes one woman’s faithfulness and trust in God turned into the best kind of Payday For Mom. Here are several wages:
1. Answered Prayer
The story is about Moses’ mom, Jochebed. Things were rough for the Jews; they were captive slaves under the harsh hand of Pharaoh in Egypt. Pharaoh was so nervous about keeping the slave nation in line that he decreed that all the male children born were to be killed.
When Jochebed gave birth to Moses, she said a prayer and set him adrift in a basket on the Nile, trusting that God would bring him to safety. Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket. She was childless and thought the pagan gods had blessed her. She took Moses in and did what the royal family always did, looked for someone to nurse and care for the child. That someone turned out to be Jochebed.
9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. Exodus 2:9 (NRSVA)
This is the first payday. By doing what was right for her son, Jochebed witnessed the protection and even elevation of Moses by the very household of Pharaoh which had threatened his life. Jochebed unselfishly let go of her son, and God gave him back. Another wage of payday is
2. Joy of Fruitfulness
Back in the bulrushes Jochebed planted a seed. That seed was her son, Moses, sown in the fertile soil of trusting God. As Moses was nurtured and brought to manhood, his influence spread. The little seed of trusting God became a full harvest as Moses eventually brought the entire nation of Abraham into the trust of God. One life entrusted to God became a posterity that worships God even today. Jochebed planted – God gave the harvest.
To be certain there were detours in this harvest. Moses was disobedient along the way, became a fugitive and spent 40 years in hiding. He looked like he would never become anything but a weed in God’s garden. How many parents can attest to those worrisome detours?
However, Moses found the love of God in Reuel’s Middianite family, and it watered the “Moses-seed”. Then God’s fire at the burning bush coaxed the sprout out of the ground, and sent it heavenward. From that humble seed of faith planted in the Nile 80 years prior grew the rod of God that would declare, Let my people go! What joy! What fruitfulness!
Mothers, consider the day, and consider the seedlings in your home. Follow after Jochebed’s faithfulness. Here are just a few reminders:
1. Live your life openly as a woman committed to following God. That begins with accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, acknowledging Him publicly, and serving in your local church family.
Your children will catch much more than you throw – they are watching…even when they don’t know it. I watched Mom and Dad’s commitment to church, God and community. I rebelled and had my own Moses detours, but when crunch time showed up, the place I ran was to my own Jochebed!
2. Resist the temptation to follow every bit of advice or nuance that comes in the form of “authorities”. We heard from Dr. Spock 50 years ago that children ought never to be corrected, let them have their way to grow to their fullest potential. We raised a generation of self-serving obnoxious brats in my generation, and we are paying the high price for it these days. Stick with the stuff – the Scriptures which are able to make thee wise!
3. Count on God. Like Jochebed, there are times when you’ve got to take a deep breath, say a prayer, and cut ‘em loose in the bulrushes. Your wages are secure when you have prayed and lived according to God’s ways. Trust Him with the payday!
Billy Graham’s mother said concerning mother’s day, that she didn’t want to be congratulated. But she wanted it to be a day of soul-searching in her life that she might gain a new awareness of the role that God had given her. [2]
A dear lady in the church I serve shared with me a poem she cut out of a magazine over 60 years ago. It has the spirit of what Dr. Graham’s mother felt about being a mother:
A Mother’s Prayer
Sing me no eulogy of praise,
Give me no hallowed stool;
Just let me be my children’s friend,
Their bulwark in life’s school.
Don’t make of me a gilded queen,
Or unsophisticated clod,
But let me understand their needs,
And point their way to God.
Help me to live the things I preach,
Admit my faults and fears,
Oh let me be humbled enough
To blend with theirs my tears.
Let me be firm to earn their trust;
Not gullible or weak.
Let my child know I care enough
To mean it when I speak!
This world needs mothers with a goal,
Unswayed by changing fad,
Who love the Lord and by his grace,
Can tell good from the bad.
I seek no sentimental crown,
No high and lofty praise.
But give me children who will stand
Through these ungodly days.
The greatest ‘thank you’ I could ask,
Most satisfying pay,
Will come when they are at Christ’s side
On God’s great Judgment Day!
-- Dorothy Sickal
Friends, this poem was given to me by Alpha Routh, wife of a farmer. Mrs. Routh and her husband Joe raised several children and weathered the difficult rural life of North Carolina during the hard times. Alpha told me that she read the lines of the poem one day while she was helping out with the spring planting. Her job was to drive the fertilizer truck, keeping a few minutes ahead of Joe. She would fill the fertilizer buckets, pull up to the next stop and wait for Joe to bring the horses.
While waiting Alpha would read from the Bible, Sunday School book, or magazines. She read this poem, cut it out and pasted it in her Bible. She often referred to it as she reflected on her calling as a mother.
Now, that’s not a bad picture for each of us to keep in mind as the formula for motherhood – one hand holds the Bible; the other hand steers the fertilizer truck. God gives us the instructions – we get busy with the work. That’s the key to a successful payday for a Super Mom!
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ENDNOTES
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1] Erma Bombeck, quoted on SermonCentral.com
2] Illustrated on SermonCentral.com
