Below are some of the things I said yesterday in my Mother’s Day Message. I hope you are encouraged.
“Are You My Mother?” is the title question for one of our favorite children’s books we read to our children when they were young. With a baby bird wandering through life asking a dog, a cat, a machine – “Are You My Mother?” the little bird searches for what it believes to be true – there must be a mother for me.
But a deeper question is irresistible: Who am I and how did I get here? I would not care to know who my mother is and to know her if I did not want to know my own identity as a human. Our self-understanding of who we are is connected to who birthed us.
With respect to the question pursued in the children’s book, “Are you my mother?”, Drema Kay Truman is the only human on the planet of whom I can say, “she is my mother – she gave birth to me.” As a child, she was my parent but not merely my parent. A grandmother, or aunt, or a consenting adult could be regarded as my parent but no one else can be my mother in the sense of saying, “she gave birth to me.” Only a female can give birth. I exist because a female gave birth to me. Furthermore, I exist because a female and a male loved one another in a marriage union that safeguarded what is ideal and best for children to flourish under. I exist because of one female and one male. Not two females, not two males, not one female, not one male, but because of one female and one male in marriage.
1. When God gave me a mother He gave me an explanation for my existence. In no way do I attempt to lessen the sorrows of those who do not know their mother and father. But only to point out that there is an irresistible tug on the heart to know who gave birth to you. I want to know where my physical life began. Why? I want to know how I got here. My mother had me, and her mother had her and her mother’s mother had her mom – until you are back here in Genesis one: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him.” (Gen. 1:27).
Seth looked like Adam and Eve (one flesh union, bone of my bone). I look like my mother and father. As a child grows up he or she begins to make the connection that the features on your face are similar to the features on daddy’s face, and similar to the features on mommy’s face. You also come to realize that, as a boy, I am more like my daddy than my mommy, I am male like my daddy is male. As a girl, I am more like my mommy, than my daddy. I am female, like my mommy is female.
Furthermore, God named the male man, Adam, and Adam named the female man, “woman” – then named her Eve after the fall into sin, then we see Adam naming his son – Seth. Point: I did not and you did not come into this world with a name tag already embedded in you. You did not come pre-stamped for delivery with a name tattooed on your behind. You had no point of self-reference by which you could say who you are.
Naming is very important in scripture. It teaches my heart that my identity is a bestowed one from a higher level of authority over my life for my good. Since my mother gave birth to me, it teaches me that I need another kind of rebirth – I need to be born again. But I can’t birth myself into the kingdom of God anymore than I birthed myself alive in 1964. Also, my mother named me because she is the source of my life and has authority over it. This is partly why Jesus wants us baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It demonstrates ownership for ones well-being. As a child, I derive all of my understanding of who I am from my mother and father.
3. When God gave me my mother, He gave me an explanation for my role as a male man, which also includes female man. This is a complementarian view of male and female relationships and roles.
This does not mean that singleness is a lesser kind of existence. The examples of God-honoring singleness are many in Scripture – especially Jesus himself. But in terms of how I am to function so that the human race goes on, it goes on through leaving a mother and father and taking a wife, therefore multiplying and filling the earth with a few more lovers of Jesus Christ. Not just filling the earth with more humans, but impacting, influencing the human race with children who live their lives pointing the way to our Creator who sent his son.
It is a logical deduction for children to easily get: my mommy had me . . . one day, I will leave, get a female and have children, like my daddy left his mommy and daddy and married my mommy, who left her mommy and daddy. It’s that simple!
4. When God gave me a mother He gave me an explanation for my miserable end.
Death strips away my existence and my self-identity and my family. Dust has no eye-color, fingerprints, or bodily features. My mother and father are dying – everyone’s mother and father are dying. You are dying. I am dying. I am not a god, I am a human like my mother and father is human. My future has finality in it. You and I will come to a final end – to dust. We may not like the explanation – but at least it is the truth. The human race dies because we all exchanged a promise for a lie. God promised us joy and provisions and blessings in living for him, the Devil suggested a lie that said we could have it all on our own terms without God. Death is the answer to our question: Can I be God? Evidently not.
Which leads us to this final blessing that when God gave me a mother . . .
5. He gave me The Answer for my need and longing for everlasting life.
In order to hear the good news you have to believe the bad news. Death does not have to have the last word. Believe it. But believe this too: When you consider your own mother who birthed you into this world, you should believe that there is another birth that is offered to you – one that will restore all that is lost. Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15) crushed the head of the Devil and his offspring on the cross. God offers clothing of righteousness for your sin – he has provided the righteousness of his own son so that you are not exposed and naked before him (Gen. 3:21).
Adam renamed his wife, “Eve” – the mother of all living. Her seed was born through a virgin girl named Mary – his name is Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Question: When you think about your mother who birthed you into existence, do you think about how you are going to live forever, given the fact that your mother is going to die and so are you?
This is what it means to contemplate the mystery of your own existence through your birth-mother. It guides me to think about the one who made my mother and made me so that I can hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
I love you and thank the Lord for giving you to me as my mother.
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