Grains of Sand

Pixabay Let the baby die. It would have been safer. Who knows what the punishment might have been for anyone trying to hide a child from nosy neighbours bent on carrying out the Pharaoh’s edit to destroy all the Hebrew male newborns? (Exodus 1:22) It would have been less stressful. I read this morning in an advice column about a mother who wondered what nice thing she could do for her neighbours to compensate them for the many sleepless nights they might have suffered listening to her crying child through the thin walls of their townhouse. Babies cry. Under normal circumstances that is stressful enough. But when the child’s life depends on silence, the stress levels rise exponentially. It would have been more convenient. After all these two parents already had two children. Another mouth to feed under slavery conditions—especially under these dangerous conditions—would make any parents wonder about the wisdom of trying to keep this child. But Jochebed and Amram, for so Moses’ paren...

Stock xchng photo Over the last few decades, doctors have warned expectant moms about all the things they should, and should not, do when they discover they are pregnant. Not surprisingly God has had that one covered since the beginning of history. Take the case of Samson's mother in Judges 13. An angel appears to this sterile woman. No sooner than he announces that she is going to conceive, he tells her: " Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean " (13:4, NIV). Samson would become a Nazirite and hold to certain rules in keeping with that calling, but why should his mother be restricted? Could it be that there is a correlation between what a pregnant woman does with her body and the tendencies her child will show after he or she is born? Science has since proven that to be true. The woman repeated the instructions to her husband. Manoah immediately asked God: " O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you...

Here's a beautiful reminder: " For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body ." —Psalm 139:13-16a