The girls and I spent the morning together, cleaning the house, washing the kitchen floor, setting the dining room table with heart-themed treats and red, pink and white heart decorations as we prepared for a homeschooling Valentine’s Day party. I had planned to be a blog post earlier this week with all the fun craft ideas we had for this special love-themed day but the days have been busy and by the time the sun had set and I had tucked the children into bed, I too crawled into bed, dead tired, without energy even for a hot bath or quick read through a book.
But on this February morning, while the fire was roaring {or dwindling? I’m still getting used to this whole wood stove thing} in the back room and the snow was sparkling outside in the fields, my mind mulled over a conversation I had with another friend, a mom of six young children, about our jobs, our tasks, our calling as mothers. The girls laid out more heart-sprinkled cookies and made sure Valentine’s cards were in place to hand out to little friends coming over, I kept thinking it does seem that as a mom, you have very little time for ‘me’ time, very few moments in the day where you can be ‘selfish’ and sneak away … try to hide that last chocolate bar and just see how quickly children seem to find you, sitting, reading and sneaking a piece of candy … run a bubble bath and you will soon find little fingers poking under the door, calling your name, needing you … school work needs teaching, meals need preparing, cleaning needs attention, stories need reading… your time is divided between children, tasks and the home.
How often we are are required to put our own personal, selfish needs at the end of the list while we put other’s needs first. Isn’t that quite the opposite of what society tells us – “Oh, you need your me time, you deserve a break, you need a weekend away!”
But isn’t an attitude of servanthood what God wanted? Didn’t He call us to be servants … that we are to be the servant of all … the least of these … being a mother, you can choose to not have a servant’s heart and grumble and complain every time you are required to take your children to an outing or do your loads of laundry, or miss out on a social outing because you need to stay home with your children.
{photos taken in the kitchen as we waited for our friends to arrive}
Or you can choose to embrace it and realize that this is a calling – a holy calling – and it is indeed what God intended …
And although it may not be as earthly rewarding to have one’s needs pushed aside and to focus on serving others, we can know that the rewards are eternal. And any mother can choose to realize this and put it into action. There is not some super momma out there who makes the job look very easy and just naturally gives up her me-time and her quiet afternoons … it is a dedicated, conscious decision to be selfless. It requires making a daily personal choice to put your needs last and your family’s needs first and see where God takes it …
The girls listen to a song on CD often and is sings out,
“If you want to be great in God’s Kingdom
Learn to be a servant of all.”
How very, very true.
Refrain from grumbling!Count your blessings!
Be grateful!
Embrace servanthood, even if it remains unnoticed from anyone and receives no praise or recognition.
In many ways, I look forward to being challenged again with another baby on the way, another little one who will need me and daddy to raise and love him or her … to train and care and hold and serve. Let me have a servant’s heart, Lord and rise to the calling with joy and gratitude in my heart!
“There’s a vision that motherhood is very, very sacred.
It is the most intimate with the soul of a child. It’s taking a child hand in hand, a mother and a father,
taking them hand in hand. It’s touching mind to mind, emotion to emotion. It’s touching soul to soul.
It’s touching those places in a child’s heart and in ours.
God is not finished with us as parents either in building us into people who can make our society better
and to show goodness in the world and to build something.”
-Janet Lynn Salomon
P.S. Need some more encouraging? Listen to this radio broadcast on Sacred Motherhood.
by Gigi
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