Sometimes a season ends before we are ready.  As I write this (week of Thanksgiving 2020),  my son Gabriel, is days away from leaving for Navy boot camp.  He’s 17.  But he has prayed about his decision and so have his father and I.  We know without a shadow of a doubt this is the path God has chosen for our son.  So I won’t hold him back, but oh, how I will miss him being around.  I will miss his good-night hugs and his proclamations of “I’m home” when he enters the front door. I will miss watching him hanging out with his siblings.  I’ll even miss my cabinet doors being left wide open after his late-night snacking.

At three months old, Jochebed knew she could no longer keep Moses with her.  The time had come for her to put her faith into action in an even bigger way.  And so she made him a basket and covered it in tar and pitch, making it waterproof.  Despite her impressive faith, I can only imagine the heartache she experienced as she placed her smiling chubby infant into his “made with love” handcrafted basket. Did she doubt herself like all of us mothers tend to do?  What if the basket leaked?

This part of the story speaks to my mama heart in two ways.  1. God uses our talents for his will to be accomplished.  2. As mothers (and parents) we should always be testing our basket.

God used Jochebed’s talent and knowledge of basket weaving.  Weaving was an art handed down from generation to generation during Biblical times and was used to make rope, mats, rugs, and baskets.  Jochebed probably didn’t give much thought to her skills of basket making.  How many other women during those times could make a basket just as good as hers? So what set her apart from the other Hebrew mothers in Egypt?  It was the combination of her faith, along with her willingness to allow God to use her simple talent that ultimately saved her son. 

1. Think of your special talents, abilities, and interests.  How can you allow God to use them as a part of his plan for your child’s life?

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch.  She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.  Exodus 2:3

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:  1 Peter 4:10

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.  1 Corinthians 10:31