Dear Youth and Parents,
We continued our sermon series, “Stories of Faith” in worship last week by looking at the characters of Shiphrah and Puah in the book of Exodus.
Now Shiphrah and Puah are Hebrew midwives, working while the Hebrew people are slaves in Egypt. These midwives were commanded by Pharaoh to kill all the Hebrew boys being born because the Hebrew people were becoming too great and Pharaoh was threatened by them.
But Shiphrah and Puah feared God. And so, instead of killing the Hebrew boys they let them live, telling Pharaoh that the Hebrew women were too strong and so by the time they arrived, the babies had already been born. And there was simply nothing they could do about it.
Now, Shiphrah and Puah make into the Bible because one of the boys they let live is named Moses. And Moses will ultimately be the one who leads the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt and towards the Promised Land.
But Shiphrah and Puah should not be overlooked, because they teach us something important about the life of faith. Shiphrah and Puah showed tremendous courage to defy Pharaoh’s orders and to let the Hebrew boys live.
And I think courage is something our world needs a little more of.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Instead courage is more like recognizing the fear and doing it anyways. And courage is contagious. In the words of Brene Brown, “Every time we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver.”
Whatever you face this week, may you face it with courage and the confidence that God is with you, working in ways you’ve yet to see and perhaps haven’t even imagined.
Grace and peace,
Kimmy
404-632-9933
