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.