She Took Their Sting
CBS News reports:
Firefighters responded to a call about a bee attack after a mother and her two children were swarmed and attacked by bees while doing a family photo shoot, Arizona Fire & Medical Authority said in a statement on Facebook.
Fire officials said the mother's "quick thinking" saved her kids from being stung when she put them in the car as she took the brunt of the stings.
"She was transported to the hospital with over 75 stings but thankfully has recovered," fire officials said.
A mother's love is fierce, willing to take all the pain, all the trauma, and even the threat of death to protect the children she loves.
How much more fierce is the love of the Savior, taking all the pain, all the trauma, and not just the threat of death, but death itself to protect His children from eternal eternal separation from God?
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, NIV).
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24, NIV).
The Godly Mother
I recently heard from another pastor that a big part of the word “mothers” is “others,” which makes sense because mothers always think about others. But then another pastor pointed out that if you take the “s” off of mothers, and put it at the beginning, you get the word “smother,” which, depending on who you ask, can also sometimes seem valid, especially if you would have asked us in our teenage years.
Moms don't usually try to smother their children. They want to protect us, but sometimes we misunderstand their efforts.
Jesus felt the same way for the Jewish people. Just days before He was crucified, Jesus said:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (Matthew 23:37)
Jesus longed for them to believe, but they weren’t willing. From the cross, Jesus prayed:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34 ESV)
You see, I think that Jesus has unceasing anguish (Romans 9:2) for every unbeliever, as long as they remain in unbelief, just as God desires for everyone to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).
Rent-A-Mom
Mother knows best, right? Well that’s what Nina Keneally, a 63 year old mom of two from Bushwick (Brooklyn), NY believes. Convinced that you sometimes just need the advice of a “mom,” she has started a new online business for those times, as her site puts it, “When you need a mom... just not YOUR mom.”
She calls her site NeedAMom, and as ABC reports, “She paid for a sponsored post last week in the Bushwick Daily and has been bombarded with inquires ever since.”
She says her target customers are young adult professionals, many of whom do have loving mothers and fathers, but feel they may not necessarily understand their children’s unique concerns or circumstances.
One woman, she said, simply wants Keneally to sit with her while she cleans out her closet and offer "non-judgmental" advice on what to keep and what to toss. "My mother would just die if she knew," the potential client wrote in her inquiry to Keneally. "Would you be interested in chatting with me while I work and keeping me on task for a couple hours?"
So you can have the non-judgmental ear of an experienced mom all for the one low price of $40 per hour!
How is it that in our increasingly “connected” society, we often feel so “disconnected” from a personal community of support and encouragement—to the point that we might feel we have to pay to get the ear and advise of an older, more experienced, concerned person? Our connectedness isn't making us more connected at all. In fact, our connectedness can make us feel downright isolated.
The more time we spend connected on our devices, the less time we are spending developing meaningful and supportive relationships … even with our own parents and families.
So where can you go to develop the fulfilling, supportive, personal relationships we all long for and need? We can start in a community of believers—the church. There is a reason why the church is so often referred to as the “family of God.” There we have access to countless brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers who are all too ready to befriend and mentor.
Put down your devices, put your money back in your wallet, and head back to church.
“And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25).
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” ( Ephesians 2:19-22).