To all of my lady friends who want to be, but are not yet
mothers:
Mother’s day was just a week ago,
and I was listening to what Matt Chandler preached on that day. He mentioned something about mother’s day and
it made me think of multiple single lady friends that I have. It blew my mind.
Chandler said that since he has
become a pastor, he has found that mother’s day isn’t always happiness,
chocolates and roses. Many non-mothers struggle
with mother’s day because of their longing and waiting to care for a family is
not yet fulfilled. There is a profound
idea in scripture that I hope will bring great encouragement.
Take it back to the start of human
kind. Adam was charged to name all of
the animals under the sun. He did, but
he never really found any of them to be that intimate friend he needed (sorry
dog lovers). Thus, God creates the
woman.
Okay, so later Adam specifically
names Eve: Genesis 3:20 “And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was
the mother of all living.” What? That’s interesting, notice that she is called
the 'mother of all living', but she isn’t actually a mother yet. We see this because a few verses later she
has Cain: Genesis 4:1 “Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore
Cain...” (insert biblical sex joke). So,
get this, Eve was called a mother before she had any kids.
This has profound implications. Women were created to be mothers, even if
they don’t have kids. How can this be? Here
is a simple example: My friend and I lead 2 groups of teenagers in a discipleship/leadership
camp last summer. Within a few days,
both groups started to call my friend “mom”.
I wondered why this happened. She
hadn’t been overly ‘motherly’ to either of the groups, and it’s not like these
high-schoolers were missing their moms.
It’s simple, girls are natural
mothers. If you find yourself wanting to
be a mom, you don’t have to keep carrying that burden and waiting. Start to be a mom now. Find kids (or peers for that matter) in the
church, in the family of Christ, and care for them; take them under your wing… and,
you know, those other motherly things that I don’t know much about – do them! There are plenty of orphans around you every
day, many of whom physically have parents around, but not spiritually or emotionally. You, like Eve, are already the mother of someone
who needs you. Find them, and love them!
(Find Matt Chandlers sermon at the
Village Church podcast on 5/13/12)
