Catch up post that spans a hidden history, much like the way the history of women is hidden. It happened but it wasn’t written down, or what was written down wasn’t saved.

December 8 – Icon: a colourful coat. Rachel and Joseph’s story. Rachel was the loved, but childless first wife of Jacob. We read in Genesis 30:1 that she grieved and raged over her barrenness. “When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” Only after a long stretch of years during which Leah, her sister gave Jacob 4 boys, and then Rachel’s maid, Bilhah gave Jacob 2 boys, and then Leah’s maid, Zilpah gave Jacob 2 more boys and then only after Leah conceived twice more, bringing Jacob’s sons to 10 – did Rachel conceive. She had a son and named him Joseph, which means, “he adds.” Rachel wanted this to be a fruitful beginning to her mothering. And she did give birth once more, but died in childbirth, naming her son as she died Ben-Omi, meaning “Son of my sorrow.”

Rachel isn’t invisible in the pages of scripture, but compared to Joseph’s story which takes 15 chapters of Genesis to tell, it’s only a flicker. And maybe that’s ok; as mother’s we long for our children to live a larger life than we do, don’t we? Does it matter that we don’t know the details about how these mother’s kept 12 brothers fed, clothed, well mannered (although this comes into question later when 10 of them conspire to kill Joseph) and well, just alive! I only had one boy, but on his own he climbed a 60 foot tree, got stitches twice, escaped more than once, was brought home in a police cruiser and almost got swept downstream by rapids. Simply put, there’s a lot of story – a lot of love (and trouble!)– that’s embedded into the names of these women and the naming of their boys that we can’t overlook. We access it with our emotions, the ones we carry for our own children, all the hidden moments that mothers share with their babies, toddlers, and teenagers that build character (good and sadly, sometimes, not so good) into their hearts. And don’t forget, Leah also had a daughter, Dinah…

December 9 – Icon: burning bush. Jochebed and Moses’ story. Tucked away in Numbers 26:59, in a genealogy of the tribe of Levi, we find the name of Moses’ mother – Jochebed. She’s a slave in Egypt when Moses is born about 330 years after Joseph’s birth. This is the hidden history, a silent space of suffering, unveiled to us by the story of courage and shrewdness of a mother. We learn a thing or two being mothers, don’t we? You see Pharaoh had decided to cull the Hebrew population by killing babies 2 years of age and younger. So Jochebed hid Moses for 3 months, and then made a basket for him, to float him in the river out of sight. Pharaoh’s daughter finds the basket and Moses. Miriam, assigned by her mom to keep watch, pops out of the bushes to offer babysitting services to Rich Princess and brings Jochebed forward. Rich Princess hires and pays a slave to care and raise her very own child. Yup. Jochebed should be the patron saint of mothers!

All I want to say today is, hurray! for moms and for women who long to be moms, and for women who have been moms to children who are not their own, like Rich Princess. Thank you!, thank me! Thanks to my own mom, grandma, aunts, women of influence, for your love, your work, and your mostly hidden sacrifice. We tell your story over and over again in our living.