The measure of a good mother
Mother. What an honorable title, and just that title evokes all kinds of emotions. Children may say daddy as their first word, but it is mother that children yearn for and crave comfort from. Even as adults, when we become stressed and do not know what else to do, we call for mama in our distress.
Mothers, found in Buckingham Palace, the huts of Congo, Africa, in expensive houses in Hollywood, California, and in every type of home in Mississippi. All have one thing in common: There is an invisible measuring tape with which all mothers are measured to determine if they are good mothers.
Mothers around the world go about the task of raising their children with an eye out for what the neighbors think about how they are performing as mothers. Mothers, not fathers, are judged by what their children wear, how their children behave at school, what kind of grades they get in school, the kind of friends that they associate with, even what kind of career choices the children make. There are so many theories about the “good mother.”
So, as the world lays out the measuring tape to determine who is a good mother, I want you to know that God has his own measure of what a good mother is and what she does.
A good mother is one who falls down and gets back up again. Consider Eve, whose very name means life. She had a conversation with evil and did not leave the conversation when it started to challenge the authority of God. She got sucked in to lies that sounded better than the truth and Eve was not equipped with the whole word of truth. She had an opinion about the Word of God (Genesis 3:2-3): “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
At that moment, Eve made another mistake; she misquoted God. Her opinion was not what she needed to combat evil. God really said (Genesis 2:17), “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Eve ate the fruit and did give it to Adam. Eve fell down, but God had a redemptive plan (Genesis 3:15): “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
As an earthly vessel born of a woman’s seed, Jesus was bruised, but in his bruising, there was a getting up morning in which salvation was born. The devil cannot change the work that was done on the cross! The enemy’s head was bruised. Eve was redeemed, and every mother who does not get it 100% correct every day has access to the redemptive plan laid out by God. Every mother makes mistakes, but the goal is to walk with the Lord and to be guided by the Lord to raise godly children.
Flesh does not determine motherhood. Moses’ birth mother gave him life and nourished him with the milk from her body and his mother of the heart, named Thermouthis, the daughter of Pharoah, maintained Moses’ life by keeping him safe until he was fully grown and ready to lead the Hebrew nation out of Egypt. The daughter of Pharaoh also gave Moses his name, which is an Egyptian name, made sure Moses was educated and maintained his cultural identity. She gave him every opportunity that her position could afford. Yet, his mother gave up the riches of royalty. She gave up her religion. This Egyptian mother loved her Hebrew son so much she, too, left Egypt with the slaves to be with her son.
A good mother will fight for her child. The Shunammite woman who was given a child, in part because she served the Lord by serving the man of God, Elisha, lost that son to death. Once her child had died, she did not make preparation to bury her child. She made preparation to seek out the man of God to restore her child. She believed the man of God could revive her child and her faith was rewarded. Her son was revived, and she held him in her arms again.
We recently celebrated Mother’s Day, but mothers deserve to be celebrated every day. Mothers never take a day off from loving, advocating and celebrating their children. Mothers are their best selves when they walk with the Lord and work to follow his guidance and not societal norms.
We celebrate and encourage mothers today.
