Ladies from our church are attending the weekly webinars with Rachel Jankovic called "Motherhood: A Call To Arms". It's a weekly webinar series, 4 consecutive weeks, where Jankovic discusses motherhood, motherhood issues, and biblical perspectives about raising children.
I do not have children and I won't be having them (I'm 58 and single) but I am enjoying the series because I get to be with the younger ladies, learn what they learn, and encourage them in it. (Titus 2:3-5).
One aspect of Jankovic's points was interesting to me. Jankovic said we see our babies, our tots, our little kids and that's all well and good but we are actually birthing kingdom people.
"God giving us children is not for an Instagram moment. He is giving us children for kingdom work."There are many scriptures that discuss or announce babies, but these two scriptures also apply to motherhood:
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord." (Genesis 4:1)
After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said:
"Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, 'A man is conceived.' (Job 3:1-3).
When I visited Italy, we toured the Carrara marble quarry where Michelangelo's marble had been quarried from. We went on to Florence where Michelangelo's tremendous marble statue of the David stands at the Accademia Gallery. The particular piece of marble had been difficult to work with for other sculptors. The Encyclopedia Britanica explained that Antonio Rossellino, the initial sculptor, cited the poor quality of the marble and rejected it, walking away from the project 1n 1464. Modern scientific analyses of the marble have confirmed that it is indeed of mediocre quality.
The marble block had proven so difficult to work with, that the huge piece lay abandoned in the courtyard for 37 years. Yet Michelangelo took on the project and seemed to carve the David with ease. Asked about it, he said,
Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.Isn't that a great way to view children? Every squalling baby is really an adult. We chip away at the 'extra' until the fully grown person is revealed.
We are raising Kingdom people.
Michelangelo's statue of David