May is the fifth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and its predecessor, the Julian calendar. It has 31 days and named after the Greek goddess, Maia. She was the goddess of spring and fertility. Maia is connected to a word that means increase or growth. The Romans had a similar goddess named Bona Dea and they celebrated the festival of Bona Dea during May 1st. The Romans called the month Maius. The name changed over the years. It was first called May in the 1400s near the end of the middle Ages. May was originally the third month of the year in the Roman calendar and became the fifth month when the months of January and February were added to the calendar. May is one of the gorgeous months of the year. All winter long we’ve been hibernating from the cold and waiting for the sun to come out from behind the clouds. The bees are buzzing; the flowers are blooming and plants start to grow, the birds are chirping…. It’s time to celebrate May! The Birthstone is the emerald which represents love and success while the Birth flower is the Lily of the valley and the crataegus Monogyna.
Holidays for the Month: May Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mothers Day, Victoria Day and Memorial Day. National Fitness & Sports month, Jewish American Heritage Month, Skin Cancer Awareness Month, National Bike Month, Foster care Month, National Blood Pressure Month, National Hamburger Month, National Salad Month, National Barbecue Month and National Egg Month, etc.
Some Important Events of the month: May 1: May Day; May 3: world Press Freedom; May 12: Childcare Provider day; International Nurses day; May 14: Mother’s Day; May 15: Police Officer’s Memorial Day; May 18: International Museum Day; May 27: International Jazz Day; May 28: Amnesty International Day; May 29: Memorial Day; May 31: World No tobacco Day. May is devoted to the Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church.
Discipleship Digest reflects on: Jochebed: the Mother of great faith and woman of influence (full text by email only). This topic is in celebration of Mother’s Day (the 2nd most celebrated holiday in America). Jochebed was the mother of three prominent children: Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. She was a Hebrew woman in slavery in Egypt before the exodus; a daughter of Livi, Kohath and married Amran, a man from the home of Livi. She married her nephew, thus both wife and aunt of Amran (Ex,6:20); a mother of great faith who cleverly designed an unusual means to preserve and saved the life of her baby boy in a very peculiar circumstance that caused her name to be included among the heroines of faith (Heb. 11:23).
The children of Israel were still living as slaves in Egypt but no longer honored by the Egyptians as people of the great deliverer, Joseph. A new King had come to power and determined to wipe out the Israelites from his dominion and he conceived an evil and cruel plan of destroying all the male children (Acts 7:17-19). He issued the dastardly edict to Hebrew midwives (Shiphrad &Puah) to destroy all newborn sons of the Hebrews but spare the infant daughters to live (Ex 1:15-16); but they disobeyed the king because they feared God. The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew (Ex 1:7-12) and the govt. of Egypt feared that they could outnumber and take over the Egyptian nation. Jochebed was pregnant with her third baby. She refused to give or abort her pregnancy in the face of cruelty. She gave birth without knowing what shall befall her and her baby and she hid him for three months despite the imminent risks. She got papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch; placed the Child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. She also positioned his sister, Miriam to stand at a distance to see what would happen to him.
About that time, Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe and sighted an unusual ark; urged her maids to fetch it. She opened it herself; the boy Moses cried and she had compassion on him. Miriam asked to get a nurse and she got her mom, Jochebed. Pharaoh’s daughter said to Jochebed, “Take this baby and nurse for me and I will pay you.” She took the baby and nursed him. Pre-school education is very important for a child. When the child got older, she took the child back to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses – saying, “I drew him from water” and she raised him in Egyptian education and culture.
Christian moms, does your home influence counteract the sin, the falsehood, the impurity and shallowness of the society you live in? How much God do you have in you such that could influence your children against worldliness, sin and shame? Such that it could outweigh other vice influences which surround your children when they leave home for college or while in search for greener pastures in far away city and country. It has been opined that true mothers’ lives again in her children – the answer to her prayers, result of her watchfulness, true correction of her own faults produced in her children. Moses wouldn’t have been the man he was without his mom, Jochebed. Be a woman of influence; a woman of faith; a woman who is affecting her world, her family, her workplace, her friends and relations for good. Hold on to things and people with open hands, like Jochebed, who knew when to let go! We wish all Mom’s and would be moms Happy Mom’s Day.
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