May | 29 | On Wide and Feathered Backs

Dream Word – PREPARE

1 Kings 2:20 Then she said, "I desire one small petition of you; do not refuse me." And the king said to her, "Ask it, my mother, for I will not refuse you." NKJV

On Wide and Feathered Backs

I remember that my daughter's final recital for her music degree consisted of two most beautiful songs both of which related to mothers. First was Claude Debussy’s ‘Year pursues empty year!’ and then Henry Purcell’s, ‘Tell me some pitying angel.’ The first of these two sacred songs recounts the heartfelt pain of a mother over her prodigal son, bewailing her own inconsolable heart at the loss of her beloved son, and the latter, the panic and violently overwhelming fear of the Virgin Mary upon realising the loss of her young son Jesus in Jerusalem.

...... Me Judah’s daughters once caressed
Call’d me of mothers, the most, most bless’d
Now fatal change of mothers most distress’d

The journey of parenthood in these most rebellious of days, in these dark days, seemingly destitute of God’s rich blessing, is a most perilous one. Few it seems can now sail that passage without having their hearts bashed about their heaving chest. Whether the ship be good or not so, each family nowadays is tossed upon these same troubled waters and many a son and many a daughter has been washed overboard, seemingly never to be rescued. Sometimes it would appear, never to be seen again.

God, in relation to humanity reveals Himself as Holy Creator. God, in relationship to His adopted family, reveals Himself as Father. Indeed, Jesus came to reveal the Father. As a Father myself, I can truly relate to the longing and looking father of the prodigal son, who night after night, scanned the hillside horizon, longing for his son's arrival home, longing for the party to begin, ready with the robe and ring, to sing some kicking Karaoke songs over a few drinks and a steaming plate of Rogan Josh, just before the D.J. gets the wild dancing going. It is only a party of such vast and extravagant proportion that could satiate the prune-dried heart of an ever praying parent, could finally suture the ever bleeding scar of a child gone wrong. Yes, the father would be laughing at this point, even leaving and going outside to plead with the other bean counting son, who stands incredulous at the window, arms folded and lower lip out, unwilling to come in. Ah but the mother, yes, I have seen the mother, seen her so many, many times and I tell you, the mother, like a well pinged, silver pin ball, would be bouncing off the walls, changing from smiling to weeping to fussing to caressing to weeping again, then to holding, scolding, folding her arms across her bosom and looking with longing on her lost love now found and when the child, for in her eyes, they are always her children, when the child goes to bed, it will be she who sees them to the room, and takes another eternity of longing looking as she closes the door upon her long lost child now home.

You may be a mother tonight, who has suffered the silence of pitying angels refusing to tell you where your soul's sweet darling may be staying. You may be a mother tonight, pulled apart inside, as faith and doubt your labouring soul has so devastatingly divided. You may be a mother tonight, unhappy with your children, whose persistent and most silent absence, has set the ships of sadness, heavy with regret, to glide across your passing, and most painful years. Yes, you may be a mother tonight, a mother in deep distress.

Mother, the Father knows your pain and listens to your pleadings for the fruit of your broken womb. Have you not been in Him and through Him, a giver of life? Has that honour been removed from you? I think not. Yes, you are still the giver of life to the children you love. I tell you, heaven is full of children who have winged their way to the Saviour on the wide and feathered backs of the spread-eagled prayers of many a flustered mother. Mother, you can still give life to your children. Keep praying for them and do not stop.

Listen: - And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Genesis 3:20 NKJV.

Pray:- Right now my Lord, have mercy upon my children, may life flow through me to them. As You reside in me, so reside in them, amen and amen.