Arise like a Mother
At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment (Judges 4:4-5).
My mother has some great one-liners. If someone is driving too fast she’ll say, “Well, I hope he gets to where he was going.” If someone cuts her off she’ll say, “It must be pull out in front of me day.” If I did something silly—“You don’t have the sense to come in out the rain,” or “That’s just natural selection trying to take you out.” She would tell me that the plate was hot in the kitchen, and after touching it and burning myself she’d say, “It didn’t take you long to look at that, now did it?” Of course, I repaid her as any good, first-born child would. One day we had parent day at the school and they asked us what our parents did. I said, “My mother naps.” On the way home from school she helped me remember that she took a nap, once, on a random Tuesday, and that next time it’s pronounced, “Administrator at Labcorp.”
Mother’s Day is tricky. We laugh, we cry, we celebrate and grieve. Some of us miss our mothers desperately, some have said goodbye jus this past week. Others are going to lunch today thankful for relationship and family. Some are new mothers and some wish someone would call them mother. It’s tricky. We’re tricky.
In Judges 4 we hear that the Israelites had backslid into wickedness and therefore they had been delivered into the hands of a foreign adversary, and they cried out to the Lord for help, and for twenty years, and entire generation, they were in despair, so God sent them a mother. Deborah rose in authority and favor and judged the people with wisdom and might. Scripture says that she would judge while sitting under the palm of Deborah, and you know you’ve made it when the very trees are named after you!
Deborah might not fit the mold you might assume when you think about biblical leader.. She wasn’t a priest or a prophet like Moses or Elijah, standing on mountaintops and calling down fire. She wasn’t a warrior like Joshua or Samson, slaying enemies with swords or donkeys' jaws. No—Deborah led with presence. With wisdom. With a listening ear and a steady conviction. She offered clarity when the world was foggy. She spoke courage into cowards. When the commander Barak was too afraid to go into battle alone, Deborah didn’t shame him—she said, “I’ll go with you.” That’s the strength of a mother. When you’re too afraid to face the world, they say, “Then I’ll go with you.” It is what God said to Moses when Moses was unsure of his mission. Deborah, as a mother to Israel, channels the very words of God to inspire and comfort
Scripture isn’t clear if Deborah had children of her own, so mothering, in this case, is less about biology and more about calling. Deborah reminds us that mothering happens when someone shows up in the middle of your mess and doesn’t flinch. It’s what happens when someone helps you become who you’re meant to be, even if you don’t see it yet. Deborah mothered a nation through chaos—with discernment, patience, and definitive action. You can’t scare a mom, and I know there are Deborahs in this room. Some are raising kids, some are mentoring students, some are holding hands in waiting rooms, some are showing up at meetings, some are making space for others to lead. You may not have a tree named after you…yet…but if you’ve ever said, “I’ll go with you,” you already share her spirit. Maybe the greatest legacy a mother leaves behind isn’t just what she builds or battles—it’s what she blesses. Deborah blesses Israel with courage and direction, and sometimes that’s all we really need: someone who sees the mess and still sees the mission. Last week we talked about the blessing “May the Lord bless you and keep you,” and we recognized that to bless someone or something is really about preparing it, getting it ready.
One of my favorite examples of what it means to bless and prepare in the lineage of Deborah is Mary McLeod Bethune. Born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents, Mary saw a world stacked against her and decided not to flinch. After her education, Bethune wanted to become a missionary, but the church wouldn’t support her. Her family moved from South Carolina to Florida where she found herself as a single mother in need to support her son. So, she built a school for Black girls in Daytona Beach, Florida—an institution that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University. She didn’t wait for the world to get better; she prepared the next generation to change it. She sat—like Deborah—not under a tree, but on wooden porches and classroom steps, mentoring and judging, correcting and encouraging. Leaders came to her for guidance, including U.S. Presidents. Her wisdom wasn’t loud, but it was strong enough to shift the future.
This is the Deborah spirit. This is what it looks like to arise like a mother. It’s seeing the possibility in someone when all the world sees is limitation. It’s building schools when there are no books, creating leaders when there’s no platform, and speaking life into people who’ve only known survival. She blessed a generation with education, dignity, and direction. She mothered a movement.
Maybe this is exactly what you need to hear this morning—an affirmation from God to step up and step out, to say yes to the thing that has been stirring in your heart knowing that God will not leave you orphaned as you seek to shake and brake that which holds you chained and tethered and seemingly unable to move.
Or…
Perhaps this sounds exhausting. Maybe you’re like, “Preacher, that’s all well and good, but for this mother’s day all I need is a nap and for someone else to handle logistics for the afternoon, and I will also feel like I am channeling Deborah.” Maybe you’ve been changing someone’s life for quite a while by finding shoes, helping with homework, logging on to google classroom, driving people to practice, trying to make ends meet, all the while being skinny, but not too skinny, pretty but not too pretty, confident but not bossy, brilliant but not threatening, poised but engaged, feminine but not passive while many of those around you are singing:
'Cause I'm just Ken, anywhere else I'd be a ten
Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blonde fragility?
Or today may be a day of grief. Maybe today you feel the ache of absence more than a spirit of celebration. Perhaps your mother is no longer here, and you’d give anything for one more conversation, one more eye-roll-inducing one-liner, one more moment of her asking you to clean your room. Or maybe your grief is layered—maybe the relationship was broken, complicated, or never what it should have been. Maybe you grieve the mother you never had or the children you longed to hold. Today might bring all of that to the surface, and I want you to know: God sees it. God holds it. Scripture doesn’t rush past grief; it names it, sits with it, honors it.
Grief doesn’t disqualify you from love. There is something sacred about a broken heart that still chooses to show up. Something holy in the hands that fold in prayer even when they’re empty. You may not be throwing a brunch today. You may not be tagging family photos. But you are here, and that matters. Just like God called Deborah to rise in the middle of chaos, God still calls each of us in our pain—not to ignore it, but to trust that even here, healing is possible. Even here, we are seen and known. So if today is heavy, let it be holy too. Let your tears be prayers. Let your memories be altars. I pray your heart knows it is not forgotten.
Sometimes we carry both laughter and lament in the same breath. And that, too, is holy. God meets us in the middle of our uncertainty and says, “I’ll go with you.” Whether you’re marching into something new or limping from something lost, God is near. Not just above us or beyond us—but with us, as close as breath, as present as the trees that shade and shelter our waiting.
So let today be what it needs to be. Let it hold your memories, your longing, your laughter, your fatigue, your full heart and your fractured one. Let it make space for gratitude and for honesty. And if you can offer someone else that kind of space—if you can look someone in the eye and say, “You don’t have to do this alone”—then you are echoing the voice of Deborah, of Mary, of every sainted soul who chose to mother the moment in front of them.
And may you know this: wherever you are, whatever you carry, there is grace enough. There is hope enough. There is strength enough. And when you forget that, we will remind you. Because that’s what the church does. We carry one another through. We sit under trees together. We rise when someone else can’t. And we go—not always with certainty, but always with love. Happy Mother’s Day, dear ones. Praise be to God. Amen!
