Hey y’all,
I don’t always enjoy being a parent. Shocker.
The job is hard, demanding, time-consuming, wreaks havoc on
my body physically, emotionally, and mentally. Especially with two small
toddlers, many days I feel like a slave and they’re constantly cracking the
whip over my head. Laugh all you want, but many of you know what I mean. Many
days it seems that as hard as I try and as many steps as I log onto my fitbit
to serve these tiny people, I am never good enough, fast enough, etc.
To make things harder, I live in a culture that constantly
tells me that I had my babies too young, before I could even start enjoying my
life. My culture bombards me almost daily with the message that I am missing
out while I am running myself into the
ground to take care of the people around me. Because that’s encouraging and
makes me want to do my job even better, right?
Here’s the thing: yes, being a mom and wife can feel just
like a job some days (only let’s note here that I don’t get to clock out.) But
let’s not forget that being a mom and wife is really a calling. We generally only feel called
when there are people to help and to serve. A calling we often consider to be our life’s work. A calling is oftentimes our legacy.
I could do an entire blogpost simply based off of that
paragraph; but I’m really just trying to briefly redefine motherhood for those
of you who feel burnt out before I present my real topic for this post. My real point that I want to get across to
you today is the Truth that counteracts a lie I found myself believing up until
recently.
Anybody can do the math and figure out that Katie Jo was
conceived out of wedlock. Our wedding anniversary is in May and her birthday is
six months later to the day. It is not something I am proud of. Growing up in a
Christian home, I knew better about premarital sex and what a big no-no that is
for a child of God. (Not because it is rule, but because it takes away from the
beauty of life.)
So, now we’ve got motherhood as a hard, demanding job that I
don’t always enjoy; we’ve got a surrounding world that tells me that I’m
missing out and possibly wasting the best years of my life; and we’ve got the
shame of a sin I committed that resulted in my entrance into this hard,
demanding job. Is it any wonder that I began to see my children more as
consequences to my wrong actions? Translated: I began to view my children as a
punishment for my sins.
It may not be that black and white and dire for everybody.
But sometimes all it takes is for me to think, “Sex=baby. So, if I hadn’t had
sex – or maybe even married my husband? – then I wouldn’t be having such a hard
time right now, and I may even be enjoying my life, like everybody else my age.”
This kind of thinking can be so fatal to your most important relationships, SO
STOP. Stop it right now.
I’m serious. God wrote a very important Psalm to us mothers
for times when those tiny little influential voices want to wreck everything.
Let me share it with you now:
Psalm 127
“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who
build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. It
is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful
labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep. BEHOLD, CHILDREN ARE A GIFT OF THE LORD, THE FRUIT OF THE WOMB IS A
REWARD. LIKE ARROWS IN THE HAND OF A WARRIOR, SO ARE THE CHILDREN OF ONE’S
YOUTH. HOW BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE QUIVER IS FULL OF THEM; THEY WILL NOT BE
ASHAMED WHEN THEY SPEAK WITH THEIR ENEMIES IN THE GATE.”
Obviously, I added the emphasis on the last half of this
chapter (yes, that was a whole chapter. Reading your Bible doesn’t have to take
hours, y’all.) BUT LOOK AT ALL OF THE TRUTH HERE that we can use in our arsenal
against these terrible terrible lies that we are believing as Christian women.
Here is the simplified version that I have written on my chalkboard right now
as a daily reminder for me to change the way I think about my children:
GOD SAYS:
1.
Children are a gift, NOT a punishment.
2.
Children are a reward, NOT a curse.
3.
Children are a standard of measure for God’s favor
and blessing on a man – OR WOMAN.
So STOP cursing your man, your children, yourself, and your
God for the fact that you fell for you husband’s dashingly good looks. I don’t
care where they came from or how they got here or in what season of your life
they appeared – God is showing His exclusive love for you in the existence of
your children! Like a prism, there are so many facets to how God shows His love for you in the existence of your children;
but I don’t have time to touch on them all right at this moment. Just read your
Bible and find out for yourself. 😉
I do, however want to touch very briefly on what is clearly
laid out in the first part of this Psalm; and that is the fact that our job –
our calling – as mothers, as hard as
it is, is actually in vain without the help of Christ. I can tell you this just
from firsthand experience.
For nearly the entirety of Katie’s first year of life, I
tried to do this mom thing all by myself. My husband and I did not enter
parenthood very gracefully. I’m not sure that very many people do, to be
honest. If Katie had a memory that reached that far back, she would tell you
traumatizing stories of a mama who yelled and screamed and said so many hurtful
things to such a tiny, helpless child. A mama who voiced thoughts about giving
her away and who drove on the wrong side of the road too many times. To say
that I struggled, would be an understatement. Pointblank: Motherhood does not
come naturally, no matter what the diaper commercials would have you believe.
I was not loving, I was not joyful, I did not have peace. I
was severely impatient, kindness was nowhere in my vocabulary – I was not even
gentle. These are things it pains me to admit to anyone reading this; but I
want to get across to you that motherhood is definitely all about those fruits
of the Spirit; and you cannot achieve those without abiding in Christ.
(Going back to the verses in Psalm 127) In raising our
children, are we not building a house? We all guard our kids zealously from
everything from the flu, to strangers in the parking lot. And I don’t know about
you, but just to get the majority of my to-do list done each day and to take
care of everyday needs, I am usually up way before my husband and kids and I’m
always the last to tuck in for the night. In a few words: my labor can
definitely be painful and exhausting.
God doesn’t say here that all of these things are bad. In
fact, He has an entire Proverb (31) devoted to praising such a daily routine.
What He is trying to get across to us (and which is also basically the entire
message of Ecclesiastes) is that we can work so so hard as mothers and be so so
faithful in this calling, but if we try to do it without Him, it is not even
worth it. We are wasting our time,
then; and that is stated very clearly by the use of the words “in vain” in this
chapter.
So many blessings can belong to us and our families if we,
as mothers and wives, would do this with the help of the Lord. Y’all, in the
very least, the greatest of encouragement would be ours. Instead of being
confused and fraught with depression because we are listening to the lies around
us, we could be strong, and hopeful and, yes, even joyful in this calling by countering
those lies with real Truth.
Think about it.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and
humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:28-29
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