“…she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank.” (Exodus 2:3, ESV)

Moses’ s mother is one of the bravest women in all of history. A Levite woman who gave birth to a son just as “Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile.’” (Exodus 1: 22, ESV)

Can you imagine the love it took to place that baby boy in that basket and walk away? It wasn’t that she didn’t know whether he would survive. She was counting on the fact that he would and took precautions to ensure it. She stationed his sister nearby to stand watch “to know what would be done to him.” And Scripture implies that she strategically placed him where Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe.

“Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river…She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him.” (Exodus 2:5-6a, ESV)

The baby’s sister then offered to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for Pharaoh’s daughter, which amazingly resulted in Pharaoh’s daughter paying Moses’s own mother to nurse him for her. Eventually, though, her job as a nursemaid ended.

“When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.” (Exodus 2:10, ESV)

I wonder which release was the most difficult. The first literally saved his life, and the act brought her baby back to her in a temporary but protected state. But that walk to Pharoah’s palace must have been heart-wrenching. She had nursed and cared for her son and yet had no choice but to release him back to the very family who had caused the situation in the first place by ordering the death of all of the Hebrew babies, the family of the man who enslaved her people.

But in time, her released son became the instrument by which her people (and possibly she herself) were delivered from bondage.

Many years later, “standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister…and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his other and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (John 19:25-27, ESV)

And in that release of His mother and His death that followed it, Jesus—God the Father incarnate—freed her from eternal bondage.

Scripture tells of other examples of necessary releases—Hannah released Samuel to fulfill the promise she made to God that led to his birth. Abraham released his only son Issac to be sacrificed at God’s command, only to receive him back immediately as a faith-reward.

One of the most powerful stories of release is that of the prostitute mother who came to King Solomon in a dispute with another woman. Both women had infants, but one of them had lain on her son in the night causing him to die. She claimed that the other woman’s son had actually died and that the living infant was hers. Solomon wisely ordered that the child should be divided in two. “Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, ‘Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.’ But the other said, ‘He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.’” (1 Kings 3:26, ESV)

King Solomon then knew who the child’s real mother was because she was willing to sacrifice her child to save him.

As parents, we are all called to release our children. In an ideal scenario, that release occurs naturally as they grow to adulthood and leave our homes. That natural release is hard enough. I was privileged to experience it twice, and both times it was bittersweet but good and right.

Other times we are forced to release our children in painfully unnatural ways: to a death that comes far too soon, to circumstances we spent our lives praying they would never experience, and even to people willing to divide them in two to get what they want. All three are unbearably painful.

And when you have cried until the tears dry up, you fall on your face before the Lord and do the only thing you can do…the same thing Moses’s mom and Hannah and the prostitute mother did…release your child to the Lord and trust Him to honor the release, knowing that even unnatural releases orchestrated by evil men like Pharaoh can be redeemed for good…to save the child himself, to save a nation…or in the case of Mary’s release…to save the whole world.

 

“And she said, ‘Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.’” (1 Samuel 1:26-28, ESV)