When Your Children Ask
The moment I discovered I was going to be a mom, my life
changed! I wanted nothing more than to protect the unborn baby that I now
carried. I would eat right, take my vitamins even though they made me sick,
rest when I felt the need to, go to monthly appointments because life was about
taking care of this baby that would soon be. At my son’s birth I felt love like
I had never felt before. The helplessness of a newborn causes the heart of new
parents to swell in a way that it causes them to spend several hundred dollars
to purchase everything from a box of diapers to throwing money into a future
college fund!
As our children become toddlers, Pre-Schoolers, and on into
the teens and adulthood years, a mother never stops wanting to protect, teach,
pray for, guide, and counsel her children. As we have entered into a place we
have never journeyed before because of the pandemic called Covid-19, or the
Coronavirus, I have wanted to reassure my young adult sons that God is with us
and is going to take care of everything! A mother is always hopeful that she is
giving the right advice, counsel, and reassurance. I believe the Lord
understands our uncertainty in all of this.
Because Journeys and Devotions is a blog written by women
and about women, I would like to come to the story of the crossing of the
Jordan found in Joshua 4:8-24 from a mother’s point of view. If I had my two
small boys by the hand and was looking at a sea of water that could not be
crossed without being swept away and the man of God said we are going to cross!
My heart would be pounding and there would be a feeling of panic because I
would not be sure I could keep hold of my children in the midst of heavy wind,
tons of water, and to the physical eye, no way through this river. But God! But
God opened the water for Joshua just like he did for Moses. I can just see
Miriam trusting the words of Moses as he stretched out his rod and said “Stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord!” Miriam knew her brother to be a man
of God who was in tune with the voice of the Lord. Can you just see her
grabbing her children and being the first to take them by the hand and saying
come, children! And because of Miriam’s trust in God and the man of God, other
moms took heart. A holy boldness came upon them and they began to lead their
children across the Red Sea!
Miriam is gone, Moses is gone, most of those who left Egypt
have died off except Joshua and Caleb. Here they are at the Jordan River. Joshua
may have been thinking I remember you doing this for Moses, but I am not Moses.
Mothers standing at the bank of the River. Maybe Miriam is still alive but much
older and frail, but her grand-children and great -grandchildren are standing
at the bank of the river and a mom is worried about if God is really going to
come through for her and her children. I can see Miriam making her way to the
edge of the Sea and standing with her shoulders as straight as her body will
allow and a wave of faith comes over her along with a flood of memories of that
day so long ago when the Red Sea opened to them. Miriam puts a foot into the
water and assures the other moms that it is ok to take their children through a
place they have never been!
Rocks were taken out of the middle of the Jordan and set up
as a Memorial and God said to Joshua, this is a place you can bring your
children. “When they Ask,” you can tell them the story of how God was with
Moses, with Joshua, and now with you!
Stories will be told of how God brought us through this pandemic!
Testimonies will be written down and read by our children and children’s
children. As we are in the midst of an uncertain time, crossing territory we
have never been through, gathering new information each day, gather some stones,
write some stories, record testimonies of things God shows you along the way so
“When Our Children Ask!” we will have details and we will show them how God was
with us and hopefully we can tell them about a few lost people we picked up
along the way!
-Written By: Patty Hollaway
