Who Puts One Foot In Front Of The Other

Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils.

WHEN I (BECKY) WAS YOUNG, Momma had a business selling boutique shirts for women (moms especially). I would often travel with her on weekends to the various craft shows and fairs to sell these shirts. Long before we began a ministry for moms together, we were finding ways to connect women across generations in their love for their families.

One of the bestselling shirts in the nineties had an illustration of a minivan with the words, “A mother’s love is measured by the mile.” As a young girl, I didn’t entirely understand what that meant. Now, as a mom myself, I understand that if each mile, step, and moment of love were tallied, a mother’s love would be immeasurable.

Though much has changed over the years, women have always been on the go for their family and friends. Consider the women who followed Jesus for much of His ministry. They marveled at His miracles and were transfixed by His teaching. Then one terrible day, they saw Jesus taken away and watched as He was put to death. They observed as His body was taken down and placed into a borrowed tomb. And when they could follow Him no further, “they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.”

Can you picture these women with me? Sometimes stories from Scripture seem so far removed from our lives that we forget that these women were just like us and the women we know. They had families and friends. They ate and drank and did what needed to be done.

These women were mourning because they loved the Lord. Though many others left Him out of fear or shame as He was dying, these women followed their Jesus all the way to the tomb . . . and then they continued to do what was needed. As they left to prepare the spices for their Lord’s body, a customary way to tend to the deceased, they put one foot in front of the other, physically and emotionally. They continued to serve their Lord even though they had experienced trauma. They continued to do what was needed in the midst of their pain and sadness. Remarkably, even during great grief, they showed up for the One they loved.

It was to these very women that angels first declared the Good News of the resurrection. They saw the empty tomb with their own eyes. They heard the angels exclaim that Jesus wasn’t there but had risen! It was to these women that the angels spoke the words of Jesus, reminding them what their Lord Himself had said with His own lips: “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again” (Luke 24:7, NKJV; see also Luke 9:22).

And it was to these women that the joy of sharing the truth of Jesus’s glorious resurrection was gifted for the first time. With clothes that likely carried the fragrance of burial, they were able to burst through the doors where Jesus’s disciples were mourning His death and declare the wonder of His resurrected life. Their feet had taken them down roads they likely never intended to travel, but their lives were full of stories woven throughout with God’s presence and power.

Momma, we, too, find Jesus in days of endless going, and days when we absolutely need to rest. The Good News for each of us is that Jesus rose from the dead and made the way for us to have a restored relationship with God so that we never have to take a single step without Him.

Tonight we pray for the momma who keeps putting one foot in front of the other. Lord, she doesn’t know exactly what waits for her at the end of this path, but she knows You are the One who is ordering her steps. She loves You. She trusts You. And more than anything, she just wants to know that it’s all going to be okay. Please remind her that she has never taken one step without You near. You are with her even now. Bring peace and strength for the days ahead.

We ask in Jesus’s name, amen.

Jesus, thank You for walking with me through life. Please guide my steps as I . . .