Today is a day unlike most others. Our culture, for many years now has set this second Sunday in May aside as “Mother’s Day.” It is a day for celebration for many, but for various reasons, it can be a difficult day for many others. Really, this is a microcosm of our lives here upon the Earth, isn’t it? Truly, it is my hope that today is a happy one for everyone, and to our Mom’s we certainly do wish a “Happy Mother’s Day,” and today we want to honor and thank you for the sacrifices you’ve made and the love that you’ve shared through the years with your children (whether they are now little or if they are adults).
The Word of God has a full catalog of the human experience, so therefore, we should expect that its tapestry is rich when it comes to motherhood. Some of them were good mothers, while a few of them were downright evil. Most of them were “mixed bags,” just like all of us. They did their best in a difficult world to support their family and to raise their children. As I am not a female, so I cannot be a mother, though I can relate to an extent to the triumphs and trials of motherhood, as empathy through human experience directs, it will never be at a perfect level.

Below is a concise list of women who were mothers in God’s Word. May we honor their memories and learn from what little of their lives we have been told.

1. Eve: No biblical list of mother’s would be complete without Eve, whose name means “the mother of all living” (Genesis 3.20). As far as we can tell, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit before they had children (though there are some who debate this). It is a tragic story. She was the vehicle through whom sin entered the world. The consequences that she suffered would have been unbearable. On a personal level, she lost her home and one of her sons committed fratricide. As she is the “mother of all living” all her children throughout the history of the world have either died or are dying. While we sometimes joke about Eve’s fateful decision in Genesis 3, it is truly no laughing matter. The world is now soaked in the curse of sin, and it has taken the death of the very Son of God to begin to reverse it. However, it is in the death of God’s Son, that even Eve has her hope (Genesis 3.15).
2. Sarah: Sarah’s story is also a tragic one. Unable to bear children, but was given the promise of being Mother towards the middle of her life. How long those years must have been between their departure of Haran and when she finally gave birth to her long awaited son. Like Abraham, she believed in God’s promise, but apparently they both were under the impression that they needed to make it happen. While we could judge them for such a mistake, it may be better to see their shortcomings of faith in us. We believe in God, but our inherent impatience tends to lead us into doing things to hurry the process. Often times, these lead to gross miscalculations, which leads to trouble for those around us and maybe even many who will come after us. Such was the case in Sarah’s life (Genesis 16 & 21).
3. Naomi: Here is a lady that often goes overlooked. Naomi and her family lived in Israel during the days of the Judges. In her life there was a famine that swept over Israel, and so she and her family became refugees in the land of Moab. At first things went well in Moab – her two sons were wed to Ruth and Orpah. But then tragedy struck. Her husband passed away in Moab, and sometime thereafter, both of her sons did too. At some point, she had heard that the famine in Israel was over, so she set off for home. Ruth and Orpah were determined to go with her – Naomi insisted they return to their own families, and to stay in the land they grew up in. Orpah did in fact return, but Ruth decided to go to Israel with Naomi, where she eventually bore a child, whom Naomi saw as her own grandson. Her grandson was the grandfather of Jesse, the father of David, in whose line the Messiah would come.
   The list of women that we could have studied in the Bible is extensive. Time and space prevent us from going further. The common thread in the ones chosen today is “hope out of tragedy.” God gave a promise to Eve and to Sarah, and we see Him working to fulfill it in the family of Naomi. Our tragedies do not need to define us – but our faith in the God who upholds us and makes all things new certainly can.