All Photos by Rebecca Tredway Photography
We have recently been studying Moses at church. I love his adoption story, how God uses his weaknesses, and how honest Moses is with God. But it’s been a different part of his story that has seemed to come alive to me recently.
Moses said to Joshua,“Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”
So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.
Exodus 17: 9-13
Okay, so maybe it seems weird that a passage basically about war has been feeling relevant to me recently. But each morning I feel like I crawl of out bed and up go my arms. There’s a battle going on in this house and I’m overseeing it. A battle to make order out of chaos. A battle to create joy and peace and harmony with a houseful of uncivilized heathens. A battle for the hearts and souls of my precious kids and in so many ways it feels out of my control. There’s a lot I can do to impose external regulations on them and create an environment where success and performance are rewarded, but the actual work of heart change is something I can’t do. It’s in those moments that I feel the ache of my arms, raised in the hope that my impact is making a difference.
But I keep coming face to face with the realization that I can’t do it alone. This idea and imagery of the support Moses provided and the support he NEEDED just keeps coming to my mind. While Joshua is doing the actual fighting, Moses is standing there overseeing and participating in the only way he can, but he can’t do it alone. He needs the physical help of Aaron and Hur to keep him going. I thought about that imagery a couple months ago when a crew of women from church came and spent hours painting and deep cleaning our home as we prepared to sell it and my pregnant body wouldn’t let me do much to contribute. And then again a month later when friends and family showed up to help us move, even assembling beds and deep cleaning kitchen cabinets, arranging furniture and unpacking boxes so we could quickly get our five kids settled in. And then just a few weeks ago when my mom and my sister came and made freezer meals for me to use after the baby shows up. And again as within the last week my mom came to deep clean the corners of the bathroom I can no longer reach, a friend dropped off lunch, two friends offered to bring meals, and a host of our family and friends came out to support us in the adoption of our foster daughter. This has been a season of seeing the value and beauty of community. And the necessity.
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