Title: How She’s Made
Text: Proverbs 31:10-31
Thesis: When we know how intricately, wonderfully and purposefully a person is made, we appreciate that person much more.
Introduction
“How It’s Made” is a really interesting TV Series that airs on the Discovery Channel with thirteen episodes a year, each with four segments. Shows have been planned through 2011. “How It’s Made” gives us a peek into how it is that everyday items are made.
I was fascinated by how they make the pre-cooked bacon in our supermarket meat cases.
• Pork bellies are placed in to a tumbler to soften the hide.
• Softened bellies are placed on a conveyor belt where the hide is sliced away from the meat… the hide drops onto another conveyor belt where it goes to be processed into pork rinds.
• A brine solution of salt, liquid smoke and other flavorings is mixed and injected through injection heads into each belly.
• Bellies are then hung on a rack and passed through a smoke bay where they are showered with more liquid smoke and other flavorings.
• Then they are placed in a low-heat oven for five hours before being blast chilled and placed in a cooler prior to slicing. The pork bellies are individually placed into chutes where they are sized and sliced.
• The slices then pass through a long microwave oven where the fat is cooked off to be used in pet food.
• The bacon strips are then rolled out onto a waxy paper and packaged so we can take home the bacon.
My point is this… even the most common of things are intricately and wonderfully made. A great deal of effort goes into the making of things like tooth picks, chewing gum and Frisbees.
People are no exception to the intricacies of process.
I. How God Made Us All
“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 too wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place… “Psalm 139:13-15
We are all so intricately and wonderfully made.
In The Joy Luck Club, author Amy Tan describes her pro-choice friend’s reflections on abortion. She had almost aborted her daughter. When she found she was pregnant she was furious. She thought of her pregnancy as a growing resentment. She drug the father along with her when she went to the clinic where she was surprised that they made them watch a film. She was shocked when she saw those tiny little seven week old fetuses with their tiny, tiny, tiny translucent fingers and the fingers were moving. When her daughter was born she spoke of how remarkably perfect her little girl was but she was especially intrigued by the way she flexed and curled her fingers around her own finger. (Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club, Thorndike Press, 1989, p. 261)
God has done a marvelous thing in the making of every one of us. We are magical creatures right down to the way we curl our fingers.
We have all encountered people we thought to be uninteresting and unremarkable but C.S. Lewis cautions us in our dealing with one another. He said that in all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics and any and all of life, there are no ordinary people. He said, “You have never talked to a mere mortal.” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, HarperONe, 2001, p. 46)
In Genesis we learn that we are all created in the image of God.
A. In the Image of God
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26
And being created in the image of God means that we are created male or female.
B. Male and Female
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. So God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” Genesis 1:27-28a
The essential truth is this: If we are only exposed to the influence of men or if we are only exposed to the influence of women, we will have a skewed image of God. God has expressed himself through the images of both masculinity and femininity.
Someone aptly said, “God couldn’t be everywhere, so he made mothers.”
II. How God Made Mothers
Proverbs 31:10-31 is something of a eulogy. It is written in the form of an acrostic poem, in which each of the twenty-two verses begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet… If it were an English alphabet it would go something like “A” is for attentive, “B” is for busy, “C” is for caring, “D” is for diligent, and so on. In creating this Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character, the poet is intending to say everything there is to say about the virtues of a praise-worthy woman.
I know of no comparative list for fathers in the bible like we have of mothers in Proverbs 31.
A. She is a woman of character, Proverbs 31:10-12
B. She is a devoted homemaker, Proverbs 31:13-19 and 21-24
C. She is generous toward the needy, Proverbs 31:20
D. She is a teacher, Proverbs 31:25-26
E. She is effective as a mother, Proverbs 31:27-29
F. She is God-fearing and praiseworthy, Proverbs 31:30-31
If we were to break this outline down and detail each verse we would see that such a woman has character, is industrious, managerial, entrepreneurial, influential and diligent. Such a woman is a model of generosity. She raises her children well and her husband is respected in the community because of her. She loves God and has earned the respect of her husband, children and community. She is in every way… a remarkable woman.
Perhaps rather than hold up this list as a litmus test of the worthiness of the women in our lives we might let it serve as a reminder that rarely does a mother receive the recognition she deserves.
An elementary school teacher once asked her students to list what they thought to be the Seven Wonders of the World. The students made their lists and the votes were tallied:
The Great Pyramids. The Taj Mahal. The Grand Canyon. The Panama Canal. The Empire State Building. St. Peter’s Basillica. And the Great Wall of China.
She noticed that one little girl had not turned her list in so she asked if she could help her. The little girl said she there were just so many that she couldn’t make up her mind. The teacher prompted her again and asked her what she had so far… the little girl hesitated and she said, “I think the Seven Wonders of the World are: to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to feel, to laugh and to love.” (getSynergized Newsletter, 7/27/03)
In that spirit I think we can all agree that among the many wonders of the world is motherhood.
So how does God want us to treat this wonder of the world in our lives?
III. How God Wants Us to Love Our Mothers
“Each of you must respect his mother mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:1-3
“Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and praises her.” Proverbs 31:28
Don Aycock tells of the time he goofed up and somehow ended up buying two Mother’s Day cards for his mother. He gave her one that year and put the other in his file to give to her the next year. Sadly, she passed away shortly after he gave her the first card, which made the second card essentially, undeliverable.
The card in his file mirrors so much of life. That card is like so many of our good intentions that never get delivered. So it is that we need to be grateful for God’s good gifts in the moment because we may never get to express our love and gratitude if we hesitate. Don’s advice to us is that we love deeply in the moment.
Conclusion:
A man stopped by the flower shop to order his mother some flowers to be delivered on Mother’s Day. As he got out of his car he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb crying. He asked her what was wrong and she said, “I wanted to buy my mother a rose but a rose costs $2.” The man smiled and said, “Come in with me, I will buy you a rose for your mother.” He ordered the flowers for his mother and got the girl her rose. As they left the shop the man asked the girl is he could drive her home.
She said, “Yes, you can take me to my mother.” She directed him to the cemetery where he watched the girl place the rose lovingly on a freshly dug grave.
The man returned to the flower shop, cancelled the delivery, picked up a bouquet and drove the two-hundred miles to his mother’s house. He had learned to love deeply and in the moment.
Honoring mothers and fathers is about respect and remembering to express our love and gratitude for the impact they have had in our lives.
At times moms no doubt feel as though they are far from perfect… but we know they are intricately, wonderfully and uniquely made. And knowing how moms are made we appreciate them that much more.
It is because of their comfort and presence, their labor and their love that they have given us a glimpse into the heart of a loving God.
