Genesis 17

God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her." – Genesis 17: 15-16

This is the chapter in which God establishes the Abrahamic covenant. After concluding the terms of the covenant, He makes it a point to mention Sarah. If the covenant was between Him and Abraham, why does God do this? To test Abraham’s faith, surely, that a child would come from Sarah despite her age, though Ishmael had already been borne. But, more than that, to ordain Sarah as a mother, and describe what that would mean—how it would be her blessing, her identity, and her legacy.

Firstly, God tests Abraham’s faith in His sovereignty over the creation of life. Every word said about Sarah is identical to what was said earlier about Abram with the exception of one sentence: I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. He knows Sarah will conceive; that it will be a boy. He knew just as surely that E would be conceived. She is a gift; she is given. Everything about her is ordained. Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.

In this was Sarah’s blessing. God never used the word blessing in addressing Abraham, but He uses it twice in close succession with Sarah. Motherhood is the blessing of receiving a gift. It is a blessing that carries great future power and promise. Nations and kings.

I think the challenge is in believing this. Believing in the blessing, the promise, the legacy that we are leaving behind. So far, being a mother has mostly been tiring and inconvenient. Being a two-resident couple with a baby is exhausting. It’s much harder than being a surgeon, yet much less recognized and glorified. There’s not much glorious about pumping milk in random empty rooms in the hospital, or getting up at four a.m., or wiping stinky poop. The immediacy is so overwhelming it’s easy to lose sight of the eternal. In a sense it’s hard to even see E as a real person; she’s such an infant still.

It’s good to be reminded of the privilege that it is to be a mother. To be reminded that one day when I look back on what I’ve left behind in this life, E and the person she will become will probably mean more than any patient I took care of, than any cataract I ever took out. God is asking me to believe this, now. Now, when most of it seems more fantastical than real. He is asking me to believe in this blessing, this promise, and this calling.