I have been up since 3:30 a.m., first to pacify Brave, then to nurse him when that didn't work, then to worry if we came home from the Harvest Festival last night with all of the costume props we borrowed from a friend, then to peruse the house looking for costume props, then to flip on a light in the office and nestle into the futon with my NIV, my journal, and a bowl of oatmeal because I wasn't going back to sleep on this particular morning.And thank goodness I didn't. You know those rare and delicious occasions when you are reading through some dusty book like 2 Kings and you are hit across the heart as if by a brick? Yes. This morning I was slatted to read 2 Kings 22 in my read-through-the-text-in-a-year plan (which I started, by the way, in 2006). So I am flipping to 2 Kings, la-dee-da, taking bites of wet oatmeal, when I read the first verse: "Josiah was eight years old when he became king...His mother's name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He did what was right..."
Now just to refresh your memory, Josiah's daddy-o, Amon, was a wretched man and a wretched king, as was his father before him. So how is it that Amon's 8-year-old son, Josiah, did what was right? Jedidah, of course. HIS MOTHER! These harem kids were not raised by their dads. King Amon probably couldn't have picked Josiah out of a lineup. These kids were raised by their mothers. No wonder the mothers and their lineages are mentioned throughout the book. Mother's shape the world.
Well done, Jedidah. Well done.
And now it is 20 minutes to 7 a.m. and all the lights will soon come on and there will be the flying of dirty diapers and the pouring of juice and the day will barrel forward. But today, I will keep Jedidah and her legacy in mind.
