If there’s one thing that fruitful Christian mothers do really well, it’s to bear with others. To forebear the burdens, sufferings and disruptions of those around them. Especially the members of their own household.
Speaking of fruit, Paul writes,
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control… (Galatians 5:22-23)
It’s been observed that these nine fruits can be divided into three sets of three.
The first three, love, joy and peace, are the direct work and action of God that sustains the believer through life.
The next three, patience, kindness and goodness, refer to godly conduct between believers.
The final three, faithfulness (trustworthiness), gentleness and self-control, refer to our conduct with the unbelieving world and its temptations.
The word translated, “patience” in many modern Bible versions can also be translated as long-suffering or, even better, forbearance. The term is not so much about putting up with our own struggles but putting up with the various difficulties we have with one another as believers and members of God’s household.
And it’s that fruit of the Spirit that has caught my eye in relation to a mother’s labour.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, in his book, Life Together, A Discussion of Christian Fellowship, has this to say about forbearance, and it’s worth quoting as we give thanks to God for all those long-suffering mums in our churches today.
The law of Christ is a law of bearing. Bearing means forbearing and sustaining. Our Christian brother is a burden, says Bonhoeffer, precisely because he is a Christian brother.
For the unbeliever the other person rarely becomes a burden at all. He simply sidesteps any burden that others may impose upon him.
The Christian, however, must bear the burden of a brother. He must suffer and endure the weakness, timidity, frailty, sinfulness, etc, of his brother (Matthew 18:21-22).
And so it is that a mother forbears those who belong to her, day after day.
Someone (hopefully another mum, and not her husband!) may reply that being a mother does not really feel like a thing requiring forbearance or long-suffering. But this is why forbearance is a fruit of the Spirit and in complete harmony with the gospel of Jesus who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).
Such was the burden of mankind, and such was the joyful forbearance of Jesus that He bore that burden in His own body.
Next, says Bonhoeffer, forbearance is a prerequisite to freedom. Not mine, but the other persons.
The Christian man will forego eating meat, not for his own sake, before the sake of his recently converted Hindu friend. He will forego his bacon and egg roll to sustain the free conscience of his new Christian brother (1 Corinthians 8:1, 4, 7-13).
Likewise, the mother who foregoes her own plans and takes her son to the emergency department at three in the morning, or who walks at the painfully slow, meandering pace of her starry-eyed five-year-old duaghter through a field of flowers, is doing so, for their freedom.
A mother, as with our Christian brothers and sisters, bears the weakness, oddities, friction, conflicts, and collisions of her children, not to mention her husband, not for her sake, but for theirs.
In Christ, says Bonhoeffer, forbearance means that the weak must not judge the strong, and the strong must not despise the weak. The weak must guard against pride, the strong against indifference.
If the strong person falls, the weak one must guard his heart against malicious joy at his downfall. If the weak one falls, the strong one must help him rise again in all kindness. The one needs as much patience as the other.
For mothers, such forbearance is daily fare as they tend to the little ones at their feet.
And this is why we celebrate Mother’s Day. This is why the Bible calls us to praise her in the gates (Proverbs 31:31).
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