The Story of Me

Exodus 2: 1-10

So Moses is born and after three months, knowing his potential fate, his mother hides him in the reeds along the banks of the river. Moses's sister (Miriam?) watches from a distance and sees Pharoah's daughter approaching. Moses cries and she has pity on him.

Seizing the opportunity, Miriam offers to find a "surrogate" mother for him who actually happens to be his actual mother. And now Pharoah's daughter even pays mama Moses for raising him. Sounds like a plotline to a French farce . When he grew older his mother takes him to Pharoah's daughter to be her son.

I think the four players in this scene all add to greater understanding.

Moses's mother despairs to such a degree that she thinks he is better off hiding in the bushes than remaining hidden as her son. How difficult a choice it must have been to finally realize, there's nothing I can do to protect him. He'll die if I don't let him go. And finally after three months, she accepts that she doesn't control everything around her.

Wow, tough lesson. All too often I try to fix my own problems, figure my way through, plot my escape, solve the world's dilemmas...and I can't do it. I don't have the capacity, the ingenuity, the resources and often even the desire to make everything okay. I can't make it all okay. I can't make my house sell or make my students learn, or make my sins ok- it takes a force far beyond what I can do to make any of it work.

Great- but what does it mean to turn it over to God? Stop trying? Stop encouraging? These don't seem right and while the concept of trusting God is obviously the answer, the application is elusive and intangible. Which might make the challenge part of the answer.

How about Moses's sister? I'm assuming she's Miriam, but I have no idea. She had the foresight to watch the bushes and jump at the chance to put things the way she wanted them. She's an opportunist- but I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. Miriam took one for the team- she knew what her family and more specifically her baby bro needed, and she made it happen. Miriam looked at the world beyond it's direct affect on her. She saw what was lacking in those she loved and tried to fill the gap. Great lesson.

Pharoah's daughter is an interesting character. She had pity on a crying baby. Crying babies aren't exactly a rare commodity. In fact...at some point, all babies are crying babies. Is she rebelling against her tyrannical father? Does she secretly want her own child? Does she see the injustice in the current regime and act to restore humanity in a time where's it's a rarity? And think about what she's risking. She's defying the most powerful man in the land for the sake of a strange child of a different race.

If Pharoah had found out, would he have laughed it off as the impulsiveness of his daughter? Would he have disowned her? Or killed her? Why does she put so much of herself on the line? And would we do as much for a stranger? Do I help the stranger on the side of the road who looks a little scary? Do I stand up for the little guy in the face of the angry majority? Or do I play it safe?

And fianlly we have the original autobiographer. What would it have been like for Moses to step back and examine the beginning of his own life? He's looking back after a long life of service, doubt, courage, rashness, defiance, accomplishment and regret. When he looks back to square one does he see the beginning of an epic saga or the pilgrimage of a misguided schnook who doesn't get where he intended, but through God's help gets close enough?

And if I were to pen my own tale- would I be able to view my habitual failures in the frame of a successful exodus? It takes getting over the disappointments- and more difficultly getting over yourself.