-by Pam Konnerup

I was recently asked to speak at a Mother/Daughter Banquet, and thought I would share with you some of my devotional.

In the beginning, God created the world, and created Adam and Eve.  If we could go far enough back in the ancestry records, we would find that we are all related to Eve.  Adam did call her the mother of all living.  So what can we learn from her—what traits did we get from her? How am I Eve’s child? She was personally hand created by God, and God didn’t just use the dust of the earth like he did for Adam, but took a rib from Adam and fashioned the woman.   She was perfect—perfect woman, perfect life, perfect husband, in a perfect world and home. In that perfect place, they had one rule.  They could eat from every tree, freely, Gen. 2:17 says, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:” Then—unfortunately, sadly, tragically—we see in Genesis 3 that Eve was deceived— she listened to the serpent’s lies—Satan–disobeyed God—gave to Adam—he ate the fruit from the tree that God told them not to eat from.  So all the beautiful life they had was corrupted. Death came into the world.  Sin came into the world—Sin messed everything up. Fellowship with God was broken.  Before they would fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden, walking and talking, now, they were ashamed and hiding.  We are all affected by sin. How are we daughters of Eve?    We are sinners–we sin because we are sinners.  But there is a solution for that.  Romans 5:8 tells us, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Another Bible woman we are all related to, if we could go far enough back, is Noah’s wife.  Some have speculated her name is Grace, since Genesis 6:8 says, “But Noah found Grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Now, this is meant to be a joke, and we don’t know Mrs. Noah’s name for sure, but as God was preparing to judge the world, He showed grace to Noah and his wife and family.  God gave the world time to repent — 120 years.  He gave them a preacher with a clear message.  It still blows my mind to think that only eight people believed God, and entered the ark, even after hearing the messages, watching the huge ark being built, seeing the animals all going inside. I’m sure the daughters-in-law and others were pleading with their families and friends to believe and enter in through the door and be saved from the coming judgment.  Noah’s wife chose to believe God. She had faith in God, and she supported her husband through the years of building this giant ship, through the days, weeks, months and years of the mockers and the scoffers who made fun of Noah as he accomplished the large, monumental task of preparing (the original preppers) to live on the ark for months–about a year–taking care of all the animals. And what would it have been like to know that now you are the only eight people left on the earth–the only survivors of this catastrophic event?

As a child of Mrs. Noah, we too have access to the “ark” of salvation, to Jesus Christ, who is the Door, the only way to escape the wrath to come.  We have the opportunity to share with those around us — our friends, relatives, neighbors — that one day a judgment is coming for all of us, and they need to be ready.  Because I have placed my faith and my trust in Him, I know that no matter what storms come into my life, He will be there to help me and give me strength.