Moses' Mother and Back to School

            A new school year is close.   In the next few days and weeks,  parents will be taking their young adult children to colleges and universities far away and near for their freshman year.   Other parents will be dropping off their children for the first time at their pre-school or their first taste of elementary school perhaps with a  lump in their throat or a tear in their eye.  Ann and I are at an age when our children are engaging in those experiences with our grandchildren. 

            There is a story in the early chapters of Exodus about Moses, the great leader of the Israelites from their days in bondage and slavery until their time wandering in the wilderness.   Moses’ mother had bore her son, Moses, and hid her son from the scrutiny of King Pharoah and the Egyptians.   Realizing she could not hide her son Moses anymore, Moses’ mother coats the outside of a basket with tar and puts her son in the basket and into the river.   If you read the story in Exodus 2, you know the outcome:   the baby Moses is discovered by Pharoah’s  daughter who raises Moses as her own child.    What Exodus 2 does not tell us is how Moses’s mother felt in the interim from the time she placed him in the basket on the river until he was discovered by Pharoah’s daughter.      

            I believe that story of Moses in the basket on the Nile River is a fitting metaphor of what it is like when a parent or grandparent sees their  child go down the hall to a preschool class… into the door for their first day or kindergarten… or waves goodbye as their parents leave their college dormitory.     We trust that young adult child or that young child as they float on the river of life as we place them into the hands of God and into the hands of educators.     

            I remember years ago a woman in my congregation telling me about the time that her mother in law saw her new grandchild for the first time.    As her mother in law gazed at her beautiful new grandson, Norma said the sentimentality of the moment was broken when her mother in law exclaimed,   “Norma, you need to start letting go of your son right now.”    The life of every parent is filled with letting go bit by bit, day by day, as they walk down the aisle to be married… as they walk down the hall to their dorm floor… and as they head into their kindergarten class trusting that child into the hands of God even as Moses’s mother did long ago.   Have a joy-filled week.-   Pastor Randy Wall 

Prayer:   Lord and God, we pray for the safety and care of those in our schools as a new school year approaches and for their families.   Remind us, Lord, that  you are always near and that we can always trust in you;  through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.