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akwete@naijanet.com Atlanta, GA, USA

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THE GIFT AND MYSTERY OF MOTHERHOOD

To the woman He said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
- Genesis 3:16; 20

Motherhood is a divine gift and the greatest revelation to the woman
- Rev. C. Kingston-Ekeke

n Sunday May 14 mothers will be celebrated around the world. Many mothers will be honored by their biological children or stepchildren or even adopted children. They will receive flowers, jewelries and assorted gifts from their loved ones. Some children will write their moms lovely poems and cards. Many mothers will be invited out to their favorite restaurants for dinner. They will also receive plenty hugs and kisses from their husbands and children. However despite the special treat that day, women and mothers continue to suffer the worst human atrocities in our modern society. Women are often discriminated against, physically and sexually assaulted and continue to be regarded as inferior to men. For example, in war stricken Sudan and Senegal, more women and their young children are mercilessly murdered while the rest of world watch without any severe punitive measures. Why is this so? What actually led to this kind of treatment? On one hand, they are loved and cared for but on other hand, they are treated as slaves and punching bags. My search for the answer took me to the book of beginnings and history of human race where I discovered the mystery and indescribable gift of motherhood.

The book of Genesis is all about beginnings, creation, sin, fall of mankind, death and God's provision for redemption. In the book of Genesis chapter one, we read how God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. In day one, God created the light. In day two, He created the expanse, which is the atmosphere. In day three, God created the dry ground. In day four, He created the light and in day five He created the fish and animals. In the sixth day, God made a human whom He named Adam. On the seventh day, God rested.

The Gift

Adam was made righteous, holy, and free from sin, and in perfect communion with God. Adam was the pinnacle of God's creation and was placed in Garden of Eden to take care of it. This garden was beautiful and surrounded by life and divine blessings. God showed him what to eat and what not to eat. Adam was given the responsibility of working under the direction of God in caring for His creation. In Genesis chapter two, God saw that man needed helpmate and a loving companion. So God performed the first surgery by putting Adam to sleep and taking one of his ribs to form another human kind whom Adam named woman. The woman was a perfect gift to Adam. She was beautiful and indescribable. She was created as loving companion and helper to Adam. She was to share in his responsibility and cooperate with him in fulfilling God's purpose for his life and the life of the family. She was created to be a helper to Adam, to keep him company and to support him to fulfill God's purposes. She was created for the purpose of being his wife and helpmate, not to pursue an agenda independently of him.

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In Genesis chapter three, the serpent, a wild and craft animal came to the woman and deceived her to eat from the tree that God commanded them not to eat from. Adam who was with her also ate the fruit. So both of them sinned against God. God clearly told Adam that a certain tree was off limits. Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, God told him, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Genesis 2:16-17). At the time Adam received this command, the woman had not yet been created. Consequently, it was up to Adam to pass along what God had said to her. But Adam did not communicate clearly God's instruction to the woman. Certainly the woman did not completely understand what would happen if she ate the forbidden fruit. Consider her muddled response to the serpent: God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die (Genesis 3:3). She added the phrases, "nor shall you touch it," and "lest you die." God never said any such thing. So where did she get her faulty information from?

However, because of their sin and disobedience, both of them died spiritually and morally (Genesis 2:17), and physical death also came later (Genesis 5:5), for God said, when you eat of it you will surely die (Genesis 2:17). But more than the spiritual and physical death, the first divinely ordained institution of family and marriage also was attacked. In-fact the family problems we have today are inherent in the curse of Adam's sin. You will remember that in Genesis 2:23-25, Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. After they sinned, they discovered that they were naked and felt ashamed.

The Mystery

Genesis 3:15 contain the first implicit promise of God's plan of redemption for the world. It predicts the ultimate victory of mankind and God over Satan and evil by prophesizing of a spiritual conflict between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent. God promised and it was prophesied hundreds of years before the fact that Christ would be born of a woman and would be struck through his crucifixion. Yet, he would rise from the dead to completely crush Satan, sin and death for the sake of the salvation of the human race. Here we can clearly see the mystery of motherhood that through her offspring, the world would be saved.

In Genesis 3:16, God continued to address the woman. He said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing, and with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you." For the first time, God reveals to the woman that she will bear children. This was a great revelation to the woman who does not have a name yet. In pronouncing curses and punishment for her sin, God reveals to her the purpose for her creation. There is no doubt that to bear children is the highest purpose and calling to the woman. The gift of motherhood was then given to the woman and not the man. Adam and this woman were naked and lived together before they sinned. But after they sinned, God in pronouncing punishment to the woman reveals to her the purpose for her creation. Adam received the revelation and then called his wife Eve, meaning "living", because she would be the first mother of all humanity of all generations (Genesis 3:20).

In Genesis chapter four, Adam lay with his wife Eve and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With God's help, I have brought forth a man. Later she gave birth to her second son, Abel." The first child born, Cain, grew up to kill his younger brother Abel. And by the end of the book of Genesis, we see the chronicle of early humanity dysfunctional families. Even though Eve influenced Adam to sin. Their choice to follow Satan rather than God brought devastating consequences that continue to plague mankind today. Eve exchanged a life without pain for a hostile and even brutal environment. But Eve demonstrated an ability to recover from failure and move forward. She restored her relationship with God, and when her first child was born, she acknowledged her dependence upon God. While Scripture does not comment on her parenting skills, it does indicate that Cain developed a resentful and jealous spirit. As a result, Eve became the first mother to endure the heartache of a murdered child. Eve did not use her pain as an excuse to question or reject God as she had in the garden. Or did she allow root of bitterness to spring up in her heart. When Seth, her third son was born, she expressed gratitude to God for this new life. Ultimately, Eve came to represent a strong and courageous woman willing to accept the consequences of her choices and learn from her mistakes.

The gift and mystery of motherhood is a deep truth that those who continue to subjugate the purpose, influence and leadership of women in this world must know and understand. The woman was given very clear tasks namely: Childbearing (Genesis 3), Care of the Home (Titus 2:4-5; Proverbs 14:1) and Support of the Husband (Eph. 5:22 -24). I will expand on these specific purposes in my next article. However, there is no doubt whatever that woman's highest position and true dignity are in the home as a godly wife and mother. No greater joy, inner delight, blessing or honor can come to her than when a woman bears children (1Tim 5:14), loves them (Titus 2:4) and brings them up in a godly home and society. Therefore to bear children and to raise them with care, compassion, courage and with common sense is the highest calling and purpose of the woman.

We must not continue to depreciate the honor and dignity of childbearing. It was the childbearing of Mary that became the channel of salvation to the world (Matthew. 1:18-25). Moses' Mother hid her child along the bank of the Nile in order to save his life. His mother who later raised him when the daughters of Pharaoh found him named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water." He became the one of the great Old Testament prophets and led his people out of Egypt. The societies and cultures and that compromise or reject God's purpose for the women and thereby depreciate the family, home and motherhood will increasingly experience disintegration in their marriages, families and societies. And we are seeing a lot of it today around the world. The decay, violence and brutal killings of women and mothers in our societies are in the increase. Mothers are increasingly being discriminated against and assaulted in the home.

The news of violence against women and mothers by men has become very rampant and alarming. This is also due to increased movement of the feminist agenda, which claim that about 60 million women are burnout in the USA and ¾ of those are mothers. These radical feminist groups are openly calling for the end of marriage as an institution. For example, a document that helped shaped the modern feminist agenda called "A declaration of Feminism" included their statement, "Marriage has existed for the benefit of men and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women. The end of the institution of marriage is necessary condition for the liberation of woman. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men. Now we know that it is the institution of marriage that has failed us, and we must work to destroy it."

There is no doubt that the women especially mothers are terribly burn out in this nation because of the different hats they wear each and every day. They have been conditioned to compete and make it in a nation that undermines the clear tasks of the woman in a godly society. In addition woman and mothers are daily and constantly faced with aggression, violence, sexual assault, rape which many times lead to their death. Today unfortunately more women are infected with HIV, AIDS and other sexual infected diseases than men. We must understand that God has joined man and woman for the expressed purpose to form a family. The family ought to the foundation of the society. It ought to be the bedrock and moral fiber of any society. But today, there is a dreadful breakdown of the family. Marriage separation, the 'down lows' and divorce threaten the existence of the family thereby imparting the purpose of God, which is to reproduce, multiply and fill the earth.

The great Greek Philosopher, Socrates once said, "Could I climb the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim: fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrap every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your wives, children and family, to whom one day you must relinquish it all" (Emphasis added). We must recognize that God created Adam and Eve and joined them together to become husband and wife for the purpose to fulfill His divine plan for creation. In this male dominated world, let us do a better job to encourage, inspire, motivate and assist women to fulfill their expressed purposes which is child bearing, taking care of the home and supporting their husbands to fulfill God given purpose on planet earth.

We wish all mothers Happy Mother's day and to all women aspiring for the mystery and reward.

God's best.

Rev. & Mrs. Kingston-Ekeke are co-founders of KLC Ministries.