By Lynnett Ndhlovu
What
is Love? This is one question that has perplexed
human beings for as long as the species became self-aware. For some, vocabulary
failed them and they resorted to simply saying that it is a warm and fuzzy
feeling inside. Others have instead taken to using resulting actions to
describe it by talking about how much you sacrifice for the ones you love. As
accurate as all these are, they don’t describe what love is. Most stories in
the bible are a testament to the belief that with love comes sacrifice; Mary and Joseph, David and
Jonathan
just to name few.
The
example of love I want to talk about is Naomi and Ruth. We
all agree that the Holy Bible is inspired by Holy Spirit and that HE
directed what was to be in the Bible because He
knew you needed to learn from it. To me,
Naomi and Ruth
is a beautiful love story. I will tell
you why: where else have you ever heard a mother in law and daughter in law
with such love and respect for each other. Don’t get me wrong there some people
who have perfect relationships with their in-laws but in most cases I have experienced,
the relationship is strained or virtually non-existent. So when the Holy Spirit
inspired this book he was angling at highlighting a subject the world has come
accustomed to as normal: mothers and daughters in law just don’t get along. I
could fill a book with the stories, jokes and anecdotes I have heard about this
subject. And yet there is NAOMI
and RUTH.
After
the death of her husband, Ruth
left her place of birth and moved to a foreign land she didn’t know and to a
God she didn’t know all because of love.
Ruth
was under no obligation to stay by Naomi’s
side as the tie that bound them together had
died. However. Ruth’s
words were “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.
Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my
people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be
buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but
death separates you and me.”- Ruth 1 vs 16-17
Sounds like words from a lover to another
doesn’t it? Well it’s a mother and daughter in law that have broken so many
social norms by continuing a relationship with each other that surpasses all
their tragedies. I always wondered why the Holy Spirit felt the need to have
this story written in the Bible. I believe that everything God
calls you to know is because He is aware that it will be a sore subject to
handle so gives you examples that it can work. Imagine the force of a man who
has the woman who gave birth to him and the one who gives birth for him become
a united entity in prayer for their person. That man would virtually be
unstoppable. There is power in agreement. AWESOME POWER at that.
In Ruth’s
case, the significant partner was late but Naomi assisted Ruth in finding
another suitor. Imagine that! Your mother in law helping you snag another bae.
Food for thought isn’t it? A certain preacher once told me that the issues
highlighted in the Bible may be difficult to tackle even in contemporary times but
are of great importance. So with that in mind, God
saw it fit to dedicate a book on an issue that is a sore thumb to a lot of
women. Mother in laws and daughter in law relationships.
Please
note that this article is by no means meant to make you feel less of women if
you don’t have the Naomi
and Ruth kind
of bond with your mother in law. Not at all.
I am highlighting that if you stand in agreement as mother and daughter in
prayer and seek the face of God you will conquer all. If by some unfortunate turn
of events the differences between your mum in law and you are too wide to be reconciled
(though nothing is impossible with God)
then pray for the next generation that you and your in-laws love each other.
Mother
love? Yes I say Naomi was a mother to a son who in turn gave her a daughter and
she didn’t stop loving the daughter till the end. She celebrated and supported
her daughter-in-law all the way to another marriage.
Being
a mother is a job that requires a lifetime of commitment and is not celebrated
as much as it should and yet it by no means an easy task. As a teenager always make
jokes about how my mum was always tired and some part of her aching at one
point or another. In retrospect, that was an extremely unwise thing to do
because now I am the one in my mother’s shoes. Mothers are selfless heroes
without capes.
There
are those that pursue their dreams of either going to school or starting a
business, while keeping an 8-4 job at the same time! HATS
OFF, YOU ROCK! Having to deal with the
pressures of work politics, exams for their academics, attention seeking toddlers
and mood swinging teenagers all the while giving more and more of themselves, I
say well done to those ladies. Often we don’t understand someone’s sacrifice
till we have walked a mile in their shoes. I am appealing to all that we should
not be those kind of humans. Let us understand each other’s journey regardless
and uplift each other either way.
At
this point I’d like to touch on some women in the bible whose stories are
hardly highlighted. Firstly Moses mother did what no woman should ever be asked
to do, give up her baby in order to save him. It must have taken all the faith
she had to trust God
enough to put her baby in a basket for someone else to find and raise. The
river had crocodiles and all sort of perilous things and yet she did it. Now if
that’s not faith I don’t know what is. In my capacity I would have had a
million and one excuses not to agree to that. The power of a praying woman full
of FAITH in GOD.
Miriam’s
wisdom led to her getting knowledge as where her baby brother landed and who
took him in. If she was a fearful and timid child she would not have had the
guts to announce that she knew a nurse to help the queen with breast feeding
her baby. Please note these are the
times when young Hebrew boys were being killed at birth and there they were
orchestrating the great escape of MOSES.
The Queen who took him in showed great love for she could have just sent him to
die like every other child. Each woman made sacrifices and did the unnatural to
enable the birth and growth of the saviour of Israel.
Looking
at it differently, being a mum is a state of the heart rather than a physical
condition. Our fist son was taken up to heaven after 7 weeks, 3 days and 11
hours of blessing our lives. I considered myself a mum but I never received a
mother’s day message from anyone after his death. I assumed people did not want
to remind me of his death but on the other hand I felt ostracised as if just
because he is not physically here you don’t deserve to be called mum. I
remember one particular Mothers’ Day, my Sister in Love sent me a message
congratulating me. I can never explain the feeling of being recognised as a
mum. I told her I was grateful for her consideration and she said point blank “You
will always be a mum and God will bless you with more.” (We
have three now!) I needed to hear that it gave my spirit a lift.
To the
women who are trying to have babies and it doesn’t seem to be happening, my
humble advice is worry and anxiety are the biggest enemies of pregnancy. I
recall crying after each time I got my period and then going on a baby cloths
shopping spree after that. I would count the number of days to my period like a
hawk and be angry and depressed when it came. I was my own worst enemy. I know
when you are in it, you feel no one can ever understand your desperation but
please heed this from a woman who has walked that path RELAX!
I am one
of the privileged mothers because I am able to raise my kids myself. Yes I said
it, Privileged. Due to financial pressures, a lot of mums are doing remote
controlled parenting. They have to
travel to and from work and in some cases move to different country and have to
leave their babies back home. Those mothers are also warriors. The fact that
you can’t hold your baby when they cry and you send virtual hugs, or can’t tuck
them at night or sooth that wound when they get hurt or watch them eat, you are
still a warrior.
To the
ones that have lost babies, are failing to get pregnant, are raising babies on
their own, raising someone else’s babies, the stay at home mums, the working
mums, hustling mum, preaching mums, teaching mums and any other brand of mum
out there, HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAYS. WE APPRECIATE YOU!
NB:
please note babies is a term that refers to children from birth to forever. You
will always be someone’s baby no matter how old you are.