Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Motherhood as a Mission Field

I am blessed to have some very supportive friends who encourage me and help me -- if I'm being honest -- survive the every-day-ness that is being a stay at home Mom.  One of those sweet friends, Natalie, forwarded a blog post to me today entitled "Motherhood as a Mission Field."  If you are a Mom, you should go and read it.  If you're going to be a Mom one day, you should bookmark it so that you can go back and it read it when you're in the trenches.

It's easy for me to get bogged down in the seemingly never ending tasks that go with having children.  Laundry is never done.  I can't seem to get a sink without dirty dishes in it without the dishwasher needing to be unloaded and another meal looming.  Kids, remarkably, expect to eat three meals a day and I'm expected to provide them.  For the foreseeable future, diapers have to be changed many times during the day.  And little people will begin to assert their independence by testing your limits.

We've had an interesting morning at our house.  C woke up early before dozing off and on until it was time to get up and because of that was very touchy this morning.  In the midst of her crying because I was pretending to eat off of her play spoon instead of "put all the way in" my mouth like she wanted and her chasing after Luca crying because he wouldn't play with her Minnie doll, I received this post from Natalie.  Such a perfect moment to be reminded that the little things matter.

Some of my favorite parts of the post were:

"If you are a Christian woman who loves the Lord, the gospel is important to you. It is easy to become discouraged, thinking that the work you are doing does not matter much. If you were really doing something for Christ you would be out there, somewhere else, doing it. Even if you have a great perspective on your role in the kingdom, it is easy to lose sight of it in the mismatched socks, in the morning sickness, in the dirty dishes. It is easy to confuse intrigue with value, and begin viewing yourself as the least valuable part of the Church."


"Think about the feeding of the five thousand when the disciples went out and rounded up the food that was available. It wasn’t much. Some loaves. Some fish. Think of some woman pulling her fish out and handing it to one of the disciples. That had to have felt like a small offering. But the important thing about those loaves and those fishes was not how big they were when they were given, it was about whose hands they were given into. In the hands of the Lord, that offering was sufficient. It was more than sufficient. There were leftovers. Given in faith, even a small offering becomes great."


"God loves the little offerings. Given in faith, that plate of PB&J’s will feed thousands. Given in faith, those presents on Christmas morning will bring delight to more children than you can count. Offered with thankfulness, your work at home is only the beginning. Your laundry pile, selflessly tackled daily, will be used in the hands of God to clothe many. Do not think that your work does not matter. In God’s hands, it will be broken, and broken, and broken again, until all who have need of it have eaten and are satisfied. And even then, there will be leftovers."


You should really go and read the post because it is powerful and these small quotes don't give it justice. But while the post itself spoke to me, Natalie's forwarding of it also spoke to me.  Because while, I'm guessing, it was a small thing to her -- to send a quick email with a note of encouragement and this post -- it meant a lot to me.  And I think that was the whole point of the post in the first place.  That the small measures that we make, the off handed kind words and the quick call or text to check on someone, are actually big measures when used in the hands of God.  


It's easy for me to sinfully forget that God is guiding even the most mundane tasks that I do.  But the reality is that He is constantly in control and as long as I stay focused on Him, He is going to exponentially increase the small amount that I can give.  And if I focus on that truth, hopefully days at home won't be quite as long and I'll have even more energy and time to devote to other areas that I feel that God's called me to as well as the mission field of my home.

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