”What’s the toughest part about being a mom?” someone asked me the other day. I thought about it for a moment. Is it the lost pet toad I found while putting on my sneakers? The huge pile of laundry I have to access with a ladder? Maybe it will be having to answer “yes” some day when my son asks to borrow the car.
While all of these things challenge my sanity, they’re not my toughest assignment. What is the hardest part about being a mom? It’s letting go. Each morning I place my hand on my young son’s head and pray what Jesus prayed for us: Father God, I do not ask that you take him out of the world, but that you keep him safe from Satan’s power (see John 17:15).
When letting go seems especially difficult, I think of Moses’ mother, Jochebed. She was allowed to keep her son until he was weaned, and then Moses went to live with Pharaoh’s daughter. It must have been difficult for her to let him go into the palace and grow up under the influence of the Egyptians. From her perspective, it may have seemed all hope was lost for Moses to become a Godly man. Jochebed was faced with an enormous problem, but she sought the Lord and entrusted her child to him. God blessed Jochebed for her great faith, and her son grew up to be God’s instrument to lead his people out of bondage.
Jochebed is our example in perilous times. The things that are most precious to us — our dreams for the future, our hopes for what is to come — must be placed within God’s hands. Nothing is too difficult for him. Not even that pile of laundry or the dark recesses of your favorite tennis shoes!