Honoring mothers shouldn’t be celebrated just one day a year; mothers deserve honor all year round! They do so much for us, and oftentimes, they receive nothing in return, not even a thank you. Often times it is a mother who will guide the world. How? Join Reverend Kenny Yates as he shows us the importance of a mother in his message, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. And Happy Mother’s Day!
16 Then two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17 The one woman said, “Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. 18 Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. 19 And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him.
20 And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. 21 When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne.” 22 But the other woman said, “No, the living child is mine, and the dead child is yours.” The first said, “No, the dead child is yours, and the living child is mine.” Thus they spoke before the king.
23 Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead’; and the other says, ‘No; but your son is dead, and my son is the living one.’” 24 And the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So a sword was brought before the king. 25 And the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”
26 Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.” 27 Then the king answered and said, “Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother.” 28 And all Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him to do justice.
1 Kings 3:16-28
This story is not just about two prostitutes or a wise ruling by a very wise king. No, it’s much more than that. It’s about a mother’s love. The real mother couldn’t bear to know the son she had carried for nine months, the son she had travailed within childbirth, the son she had given life to would be cut in two. She’d rather have the thief have him than to see him killed.
The pain of death would be more excruciating for her than the pain of someone receiving his love, enjoying his first steps, rejoicing over his first words. Mothers will suffer so their children won’t have to.
