Mothers Day in Bossier City, LA

May 8, 2022



Today's message at TimberCreek Church was given by Pastor Patrick Tanton. A video of the message can be found here.

However, Lynn and I were in Cocoa Beach, FL today enjoying the sun and sand. And more importantly, our daughter Tracy and grandkids Jonathan, David, and Serafina were at The Simple Church in Bossier City, LA (Shreveport area). Why you may ask! Today is Mothers Day, and that church was doing a very special segment in their Hidden Figures series about motherhood. They were interviewing Grace, who we know as the surrogate "Tummy Mom" for our adopted twins, Jonathan and David. Unbeknownst to Grace, the church had flown Tracy and Fina down there with the twins to surprise Grace. And surprise her they did! The video of their service today is here. The interview with Grace begins at 46:30 and Tracy and gang enter at 1:05:25. It's quite a story for Mothers Day!

As it turned out, there were a number of Torah-related things to say about their sermon today (starts at 1:15:27)...

First, it was clearly Mothers Day, and celebrating mothers and woman were on full display. One of the attacks made on the Torah specifically and the Old Testament generally is that it is sexist, misogynistic, etc. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Right off the bat with the Creation story, God is creating things in ascending order as the seven days progress. And what is His final creation, the highest-order creation? Woman.

Throughout the Torah, the heroes and villains of the stories are evenly spread across men and women, and not necessarily Israelite, either! The importance of the family unit and the invaluable contributions of both mothers and fathers are recurring themes throughout the Torah. Mothers and fathers made it into the Ten Commandments! There are laws about taking care of the widows and the orphans which certainly relates to today's story of surrogacy and foster/adoption.

Deeper into the message, the pastor references Deborah, a very strong woman of the Old Testament. She was not only a judge, but she led the Israelites in battle (see Judges 4). Women, and mothers especially, push through the pain and get the job done. In this battle story, Deborah takes the place of a general who is afraid to go to battle without her. Deborah steps up! In the book of Numbers, a census is taken a few times in order to determine how many fighting men there were as the Israelites were going to have to conquer enemies in Canaan. There were some rules about who could be counted as fighting men: at least 20 years of age (no upper limit), not a newly married man, etc., AND he could not be afraid. If afraid, he was to stay back as to not undermine the mission.

One of the most amazing women of the Torah was the daughter of the Egyptian Pharoah who raised Moses from a baby when she pulled him from the Nile. The Torah considers her Moses' mother because she raised him. Can you imagine the gumption of a woman to raise a baby boy whom her father specifically ordered to be killed?! Another story of a non-Israelite, female heroine.