“Strong Waters” – The Mothers Who Hold Our World Together!

A Day Of Mixed Emotions

This weekend mothers, rightfully so, are being splurged upon, celebrated for their birthing of children and giving life to the legacy of their and the children’s father’s lineage. The same for spiritual, surrogate, and bonus moms who hold an equally sacred and lifesaving space in the lives of their ‘children.’ Mothers and children are also feeling the pangs of the mixture of grief and joy from missing their absentee moms whose presence has gone because of physical or relational death. The mixed bag of emotions felt on this day yearly is palatable but I am encouraged because over the years I have seen a vulnerability, compassion, empathy and affordability of shared spaces for all of the experiences and emotions of the impact of mothers. The apostle Paul speaks in plain and permissive language encouraging us to share dual spaces with each other as Christ has modeled for us. “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” Romans 12:15 (NIV).

Many attributes of motherhood can be celebrated and quite frankly one day cannot suffice the all encompassing role of a mother. Her job is literally the manifesting of every single profession known to man (doctor, advocate, homemaker, guide, teacher, counsellor, home cafeteria director, manager, negotiator, cleaning guru and the list is unceasing and when you think you have figured out all of the roles of a mother, another batch unfolds. As older children we can attest to that because as we grow and evolve, so does the role of our parents and the longer the children and parent lives the higher the evolutions and discovery that just when you don’t think you need your mother again, life teaches you that that need will never end.

In my mid stage of life, I don’t think I can say that there is nothing I don’t need from my mother because at the very least, I need her prayers, calls, laughter, comfort, correction, and spiritual fortitude now more than ever, and I know that if physically I am unable to care for myself, she would be the first one to use the strength that she has to care for me. She is the glue which makes sure that life doesn’t shred me away…she is the heart, mind, compassion and strength of the Mother in God who is our first mother and whose mothering ways flow in the DNA and veins of all categories of mothers who impact the lives of their children (biological, adopted, spiritual and creatively).

God Has Appointed A Mother’s Work

Author Ellen White in her book Adventist Home: Section 10—Mother—Queen of the Household, Chapter 38—Mother’s Position and Responsibilities, gives some additional insight into the Divine and consequential job description of a mother in the lives of her children.

God Has Appointed Her Work—Would that every mother could realize how great are her duties and her responsibilities and how great will be the reward of faithfulness.
The mother who cheerfully takes up the duties lying directly in her path will feel that life is to her precious, because God has given her a work to perform. In this work she need not necessarily dwarf her mind nor allow her intellect to become enfeebled.
The mother’s work is given her of God, to bring up her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The love and fear of God should ever be kept before their tender minds. When corrected, they should be taught to feel that they are admonished of God, that He is displeased with deception, untruthfulness, and wrongdoing. Thus the minds of little ones may be so connected with God that all they do and say will be in reference to His glory; and in after years they will not be like the reed in the wind, continually wavering between inclination and duty.
To lead them to Jesus is not all that is required…. These children are to be educated and trained to become disciples of Christ, “that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.” This work of molding, refining, and polishing is the mother’s. The character of the child is to be developed. The mother must engrave upon the tablet of the heart lessons as enduring as eternity; and she will surely meet the displeasure of the Lord if she neglects this sacred work or allows anything to interfere with it…. The Christian mother has her God-appointed work, which she will not neglect if she is closely connected with God and imbued with His Spirit.

Born of the Spirit – God our Mother

Not as widely discussed but it is good to revisit our origins from Eliom: Creator God and the relationship within the Godhead for our creation and spiritual rebirthing. One of the roles in the partnership of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit’s power from God the Father to bring to life (breathe life into) what God the Son created (both physically and spiritually.

Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
Psalm 104:29-30: “You hide your face; they perish. You take away their breath; they die and return to dust. You send your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.”
John 3:5-8: “5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[ gives birth to spirit…”
Luke 1:35: 35: “The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
Ezekiel 37:5: “This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.”

Maternal Imagery of God

The Word of God gives us some of the most beautiful Maternal imagery of God and a mirror to biological and spiritual moms showing Who their Godly role should reflect.

Isaiah 66:13: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.”
Isaiah 49:15: “Will a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even if she does forget, I will not forget you.”
Hosea 11:3-4: “Then I led them with cords of a man, with bands of love; and I was to them as one who lifts his own baby on his cheeks, and I will take them back. I will heal their back, and they will be healed.”
Matthew 23:37: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!”
Galatians 4:26: “…but the Jerusalem that is above is free; she is our mother.” Speaking about heavenly Jerusalem as a symbolic mother of believers.

Strong Waters – The Mothers Who Hold Our World Together

Looking for mother’s day gifts this year alerted me to a famous quote by Susan Gale, used by many to describe the maternal figure in their lives in good and bad times. “Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they’re still holding the family together.”

It is a powerful imagery, still its inspiration and origin reaches centuries before Gale penned it. As a matter of fact it is a node to one of the Hebraic introductions of the essence of a mother, אֵם eym (em). Occurring 220 times in the Old Testament, heavily in Genesis beginning with Genesis 2:24, setting the foundational meaning of a literal mother – birther of a child and through Zechariah with the concepts of and origin or source such as the kingdom of Judah as the mother the people of that tribe in Isaiah 50:1 and as the mother the Prophetess Deborah rising as a mother to guide-less and motherless Israel in Judges 5:7.

The Hebrew biliteral root A-M (When combined these two letters mean “strong water” which is “glue” and is the Hebrew word for “mother,” the one who is the “glue” of the family.)

What was most fascinating and inspiring to me was the topical lexicon’s information’s origin of the word coming from an “unused root meaning to bind the family together.” Coupled with the original 22 Hebrew letters were pictographic script which is the use of symbols: pictures of animals, tools or parts of the body, the transliterated Hebrew word for mother em is אֵם and its pictographic script is a picture looking like water and an ox. Reading from right to left the first letter is the symbol of the head of ox and its reputation of strength (strong as an ox), and the second letter is the picture of water and combined it reads and describes a mother’s role as “strong water.”

Strong water is the glue the Hebrews used in making tents by boiling animal skins in water until the skin broke down leaving a thick and sticky liquid at the surface of the water. That thick liquid was an extremely powerful binding agent. So in the role of mother as the one assigned by God to hold the family together a symbol of His role as our creator binding us together and with Him, when they saw the symbols they knew that it described a mother, the one who “binds” her home (tent) together. Adam may have understood Eve’s assignment as the birther and caretaker of their children and the attributes of a compassionate and restorative God holding the world and His children under His care. Following the discourse with God after the fall created a fissure even between God, Adam, and Eve, “Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother ( אֵם eym (em)) of all who live.” Genesis 3:20 (NLT)

Modern Day Mothers and Birthers

The Gospels do not record Jesus calling Mary mother but there is also a major chunk of Jesus’ life as a child missing, so it is safe to say that he called her mother or “ima”. What we do see as an adult is Jesus using woman as a term of endearment and closeness when addressing her in John 2:4 and John 19:26-27 when he gave her the assignment of adoptive and spiritual mom to John. Isn’t it a wonderful feeling to know that God has gifted biological, spiritual, and figurative mothers His life giving gift to us to preserve the life of the family through her binding love, compassion, wisdom, and nurture. And figuratively speaking we moms and creatives have the life-giving power to create and birth ministry which can help bring people to the wonderful, binding, love of the ultimate Creator (mother) God.