The Bible Written for Moms

Our church started up a mentoring program recently where an older woman is set up with a younger woman to intentionally meet and spend time together with the goal of Titus 2, "They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind an submissive to their won husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled."  I may not love being considered the older woman now, but who cares?!  I love meeting with other women and actually feel so compelled to do it that it takes everything in me to not stop young moms in the grocery store and ask if they want to come over.

So yesterday was the first official visit with my new young mom friend.  It was great.  One of the things we talked about at the end was how I read the Bible.  I did not tell her to pull out a Greek word dictionary, but instead I told her to read it as if God has written it just for her, a mom.  I know that Jen Wilkin, an author who has recently written a book called Women of the Word would disagree with that, but allow me to explain.  I gave her the example of the verse I read yesterday.

2 Cor 6:4, "...but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way:  by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger...."

This young mom will probably not be persecuted (at least not in the same way the Corinthians were), but will she need to commend herself to great endurance?  to afflictions and hardships?  Yes!  As a young mom, when your oldest is only 4 and you have a two year old and a baby on the way, all you do is deal with needing endurance!  Afflictions, hardships and calamities are going on all day!  Will she go through beatings?  Sure, in a way!  Her body is getting beat up by the baby inside her and in our house there are regular beatings between siblings!  I'm constantly breaking up a fight.   Inprisonments?  Maybe not in the Corinthian way, but sometimes I wish I had a police officer in my home to help manage the kids.  Riots?  Oh yes. There are riots.  My kids picket against the work, the food, the long hours....This mom probably has riots in her home, too.  Labours?  Literally.  She'll go through labour in a few short months.  She'll also labour in her home all day long.  Sleepless nights? Of course!  All moms have seasons, sometimes really long seasons of sleepless nights.  Before the baby, after the baby, during toddlerhood......it seems like it will never end.  Hunger?  She may not go hungry, but she may experience seasons of financial stress where she's eating on an extremely tight budget.  My other friend is getting her food from the food bank and did experience hunger this past summer for the first time in her life.  So yes, even a mom can experience hunger.

Suddenly the Scripture has come to life!  Paul really did write it for her.  He may not have known she would exist, but God knew.  And as she reads on she'll find that if she commends herself to God during this season of life, then she'll be just like the Corinithians, "as unknown and yet well known". What a great phrase for a mom who feels like what she is doing doesn't matter.  She feels "unknown" and not important, yet she is so well known, so important...in the eyes of God.  Though she will feel exhausted and "dying"...."behold, we live"!  If we live as moms in the word of God, even though we feel we're at the end of our rope we still live because of the power of God in our lives.  "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything." In the eyes of the world this mom is wasting her time, her life.  She is sacrificing by living on one income which may make her appear poor.  Yet the Bible reveals the amazing contradiction that she is in fact making many rich!  Her kids!  She may have fewer possessions than others, but she possesses everything - eternal life.

I know that Paul's intent was for a different audience.  I know that he wrote it to those under persecution, but to to me, no one is under more persecution these days then the stay-at-home mom. She's a fool in the eyes of the world.  So when I explained to read that passage in that way, it really comes to life for a mom who won't necessarily be in the middle of an actual prison, but may feel imprisoned in her own home surrounded by kids and cold weather.  Reading it in that way may just help her feel God knows her situation exactly.