Happy Mother’s Day. Trust you have a meaningful day. We have all experienced various trials that come along when we least expect it. We can learn some good and some not so good practices from nature. Floods over the past year have seen a rapid increase in fish numbers in the Murray River and the subsequent increase of bird life. Animals keep their young if the conditions like food and water are plentiful. If there is a drought we see animals abandon their young. Humans do not follow such harsh practices. In fact we see incredible examples of sacrificial love shown by human mothers. This is a God given gift and many of us are very thankful for the level of love shown to us by our mothers. It’s rarely perfect and there are many obstacles but mothers try incredibly hard to raise their child. Mary the mother of Jesus had a tough start. We can learn a lot from how Mary coped. She travelled over 100 km to Bethlehem and then gave birth in a place normally reserved for animals. It was a tough few years that included hiding in Egypt as a refugee family. But she loved and nurtured Jesus in the midst of many challenges but all this helped him to become a mature and caring man.
Yes, Jesus is the Son of God but we should never overlook the role that his mother Mary played in raising Jesus.
“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
Luke 2:4-7, ESV