1 Kings 3:16-28
Imagine you and another woman live in the same house. You are both single mothers and rely on one another to make the rent and survive. When you discover you are both pregnant you rejoice in knowing that your friend will be walking the same journey with you. You both rejoice over the first flutter in your abdomen and you cry with joy when each of your babes are born. Happy to experience these moments with another. You are both outcasts and alone in the world, no family to protect you, only each other and the babies you now rejoice over. One night, you sleep deeply, the kind of sleep so rare when a baby is still nursing. You feel the warmth of the baby’s body next to you and contentment fills your heart. You doze off and allow the sleep to claim your mind and body.
The light of a new morning filters through the cloth covering the open window. You can hear your neighbors moving about starting a new work day. Something is different and, in your sleep, induced state you can’t process the difference until you move. The warmth is gone. Horrified you reach for your baby, only to find the familiar blanket but in its place is a dead child. The scream that rips through you body is frantic and desperate. You refuse to touch the child and run into the one living area, where you see your friend holds your baby to their breast. “What have you done?” The horror of the moment slows time. “Give me, my baby!” The woman refuses adamant that the baby is her baby. You know it’s not. When the baby cries out your own milk flows from your breast needing the release of feeding your baby.
You stand before the King, demanding justice, you want your child returned to you.
Solomon listens intently. His wise eyes follow each person lips. He sits silently for a moment, in the that second an hour passes as you yearn to hold your child again. The other woman just as desperate to hold onto the baby.
“Then the king replied, “This woman says, ‘My son is alive and yours is dead,’ but that woman says, ‘No, your son is dead and mine is alive.’ ”
The king continued, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought him a sword, and the king declared, “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
Then the woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she yearned with compassion for her son. “Please, my lord,” she said, “give her the living baby. Do not kill him!”
But the other woman said, “He will be neither mine nor yours. Cut him in two!” Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. By no means should you kill him; she is his mother.”
The love of a mother will see her baby live with another instead of die. Solomon understood this and was called a wise King. He immediately saw the truth and ruled accordingly. How often do we look at our own lives and only see what the world sees? The world wouldn’t have ruled in the same manner. They would have seen her as a desperate and mourning mother instead of a heartbroken mother. We judge based on what the eyes see and not always on the wisdom given to us by God. We will try to limit God’s abilities with our own human understanding. This woman knew that the living baby was her child, but did the neighbors believe her when she appealed to them for help? I say, no, because she ended up before the King. The KING!
The relentless love of a mother will not stop until she is heard. You will protect and defend your child, but think of the God who created your child. How much more does He love your baby? He knit their innermost being together and allowed you the honor of being its mother. Will He not fight for the child he created? You can trust in the almighty power of God.
suburbanthoughts 