Invisibility Pt. 2-

THE FATHER'S HEART THROUGH A MOTHER'S EYES


"I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save a few." (1 Cor 9:22 )

So, as we ended last week we resolved, you WONDERS of your FATHER’S HEART…and I, to blink HARD and get our own exhaustion-induced version of this key verse out of our minds. HERE is WHY I want this for you and I so badly:

I KNOW, that if we can grasp the magnitude of the honor God has bestowed upon us in asking us to raise HIS children… If we can truly let it sink it and settle in our hearts that our Father chose US just as confidently and intentionally as he knit our children together, to carry out the immense and magnificent challenge of bringing his babies safely through this world and back home to HIM, having given Him glory on their journeys, and even grabbing up a few stragglers along their way…. fulfilling their own purposes... If THAT concept could authentically live inside of us daily, in even the most monotonous, arduous days, even the utterly 'invisible' ones, we would KNOW inside and out,that there is no greater purpose for our lives.

It's huge. We would KNOW there is no deeper meaning. No more successful ‘job’ or career path. No more distinguished title than our own: MOMMY. There is no more flattering promotion or once a year bonus than those tiny, muffled up daily words… “Ahhwna hode joo” (My 2 year old’s version of “I wanna hold you”). It ALWAYS incites me to respond, "That's so funny because I want to hold you, too!" I could cry at the extravagance of that kind of love. And MY GOD, not only called ME and YOU to the task of raising these, each our own, unique and individual kiddos, but also infused that ‘duty’ not with a paycheck or a plaque, promotion or preferred parking spot, but with the wet, yummy, goldfish -lip kisses and tender little “hode joo’s” that we receive daily. Does it get better? I wonder, really? Does it? Better than tucking those bitty heart-boosters in your heart as you go along...?

Do our husbands get that at work? I had to laugh at my husband last week, but now, I almost feel sorry for him. I don't care that he's in bed. I don't care that I'll regret staying up so late tomorrow morning. I don't care. I don't want to trade!

I want us to GET the fact that we are, above all, cherished by our Father. And ONE of the many, many ways we get to know this intimately, and daily, is by the sheer fact that He's asked of us a thing more dear to His heart than we can even fathom. We think WE love our children? Imagine with HIS capacity for love, how much more so He loves them. And us. HE HAS entrusted them to us! Think yourself a shepherd....and I'll tell you why that is the highest calling your life could assume in a bit... For this moment, let's just agree on one thing: I am a blessed woman. And YOU, you Wonder of your Father’s Heart, YOU are a blessed woman, too. So, BLINK HARD with me, and let’s get this perspective down RIGHT so we can not only walk confidently in this calling of motherhood, but ALSO receive IN IT, the love with which he means to fill us for the road ahead.

If nothing else, let these words become for YOU, a love letter that God has slipped into our apron pockets each new morning. It is, after all, a tender reassurance of our value to Him. It is a message endlessly infused with words of His confidence in His own choice of YOU for the task He has set before you- the good works He's set up for you to walk into. It is a letter affirming His intention that YOU know there is no more prestigious, honored role in HIS eyes that you could be playing in your life, than tending to His little sheep. Becoming all things…..to save your few…

THAT'S WHY WE'RE DWELLING HERE! YOU WERE CHOSEN FOR THIS! I don't want you to miss out on the fact that YOU are precious here, too. God did fine before us and will do fine after- but His intent to bring future generations of lovers of the King into this world DID, in fact, settle upon you (and not as a punishment!!!! though you may wonder on some days..... :) He could have gotten these little ones here through any means. But YOU were chosen, by His divine knowledge and intimate love for YOU. It was His knowledge of YOUR heart and all the goodness that you've allowed Him to sow deep within it: the faith, hope and love.....that HE saw and found worthy for the task of mothering these lambs. YOU were graciously selected for THIS time and THIS task with THESE CHILDREN! That, my sisters, is flattery!

(Now, before you get too hung up on the emphasis on 'YOU', as many believers can, please recognize, I am simply wanting to point out that we can only walk this motherhood journey in steps truly glorious to HIM if we have the right perspective, and that requires a correct understanding. If we feel it an assignment to be a mom, or an obligation, a burden even....we aren't evil, we just aren't RECEIVING the full package of love God has in it for YOU, too! (Remember, the little ones around your feet or driving your car aren't His only 'babies'! You happen to fit that description as well) We started out in our faith by responding to HIS initiation of love toward us. Likewise, we will only rise to this calling of mommy-hood joyful and spirit-filled only if we see it for what it is: A beckoning to accept His choice in us for this purpose- AND an opportunity to respond to such humbling adoration by raising our little ones in the influence of such awareness!)

Want back up proof? Remember this simple truth. Jesus chose broken, fallen, even desertion-oriented Peter to become the rock upon which His church would be built. He chose simple words in John 21:17: “Feed my sheep” or “Tend my lambs.” But the message was not simple. You know this by experience. The call to shepherd God’s children was not a casual one. It was one requiring absolute dedication and of great urgency to Jesus. One that would involve great obedience, sacrifice and one that was, in fact, not a menial or mundane set of routing tasks, but a sacred trust.

This request, as I see it, was a seal of love between Jesus and Peter- Jesus asking Peter the extent of his love 3 different times, "Peter, do you love me?"- and even in his multiple honest, but certainly not ideal answers, Jesus conceded by providing all the reconciliation for those shortcomings possible. He basically said, I am giving you this precious ‘job’. Do this for me, show me your love for me by loving my children… And likewise, Peter, you have no choice but to see that I love you, WITH all your shortcomings, with your lacking love for me, with your imperfections included. You can see this because I am entrusting to YOU, my most cherished and sacred belongings… In essence, you fail in your love for me, but MY love for you is enough to make up for your 'like' for me.

Does that encourage you as it does me???? Even if you don't FULLY grasp HIS love for you, if you see yourself in your shortcomings with regard to your children, when you have a shorter temper than you'd like or fall short in any of a million ways (that only you are keeping track of.....) Jesus said it to Peter. I trust He says it to us too.

That number one thing that was on His mind then is still monumental in His heart NOW: finding care for his 'sheep'....He entrusted them to Peter even after watching him falter down the ladder of love three times to a final, "Lord, you know I LIKE you....." still, the Lord handed him His most precious of concerns and said, take care of this for me. My translation? I love YOU enough to make up for your like for me. And THAT seal will give you what you need to do this thing I have asked of you. To become a shepherd over my flock.

Call yourself a shepherd this week. In spite of every single flaw you find. He STILL handed these big-eyed, little wonders to you.... Just soak in that for awhile, and scoop up a few "hode joos" while you're at it.


Oh- and tell my YOUR little ones' versions of 'hode joo' if you can. i LOVE 'em!

INVISIBILITY: PT 1

THE FATHER'S HEART THROUGH A MOTHER'S EYES: EXPERIENCING GOD'S LOVE FOR ME THROUGH MY OWN EXPERIENCE OF LOVING MY CHILDREN

"I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save a few." 1 Cor 9:22


A few days ago, I had the rare opportunity to witness my husband grappling with what was, to him, a rather foreign and formidable foe. He only wrestled it a few hours while I was away, but this menacing adversary had fixed itself like a black cloud over his entire day- and had, by noon, very nearly obscured his entire outlook on life. The particular adversary? Simple and simply-precarious perspective. Let me tell you what happened, which as you’ll see, was really the nothingness of everything we face as Mommies, Every. Single. Day.

My phone rang and I answered. I compassionately listened as he expressed the weight of a seeming parasite which had invaded his brain and was gnawing the absolute purpose and meaning, minute by minute, from his day. After a time, I could not help myself… and I laughed out loud. I did. I laughed hard. Not at him so much- but at the absurdity that this struggle was, to him, a “revelation.” With sheer exhaustion and a solid dose of naiveté weighting his voice, he lamented into the phone… “It’s just so hard to actually accomplish anything…Do you know what I mean????”

“Yes.” I said. “Yes, I do…” And I chose then and there to laugh instead of cry.

Firstly, I laughed for the most obvious reason: He was home with the kids- while I, hours away, drove safely, staring down the incandescent waves as they flirted with the sun and peeled along the coastline along the 101 from Oxnard up to Montecito… “Neener, Neener…” (Never mind that I was on my way back home from a Dr. Appt. No matter. I was OUT of the house, and I was alone.)

Secondly, I laughed that he was only home with TWO of our four boys at the time of his call! I had dropped Em off on my way out of town and I had packed Avy’s snack and backpack before leaving and I was going to be picking them both up on my way back home and I would arrive back home with the older boys just in time to put the babies down for naps…so in reality, my dear husband had evaded even the routine complications of stuffing babies into the car multiple times a day for multiple trips to and from the school- and almost everything else. He was calling me, as it would turn out, from the park!

(Now, don’t get me wrong here. The purpose for this story has nothing to do with capability. My husband regularly takes our four boys, all of whom are under six, to the beach or the mountains to hike for hours at a time- often much to my heightened anxiety, and he handles it beautifully-just to give me a break. But what I’m talking about here, is perspective.) ON a ‘stay at home’ day, when homework and getting to and from school is a factor, when dishes ravage the sink without ever ceasing, when laundry splays itself boldly upstairs and down, daring me one sniff it before making the next move… on a ‘normal’ day when the constant task of keeping food in their tummies, diapers freshly ON their bodies and discerning the correct ratio of disciplining the necessary behavior to fighting actually worthwhile battles all factor in- on this type of day, the type of day I have almost every day, where perspective is vital, my husband actually had the notion that he’d stay home and “get some stuff done.”

Thirdly, the fact remained that his “epiphany” was far more the rule than the exception in my every-dailiness as a mother, and was, in fact, nowhere near foreign- not even nudging close to being novel or distinct in any way. It was not of another time, place, or world. It was neither dreamt up, rooted in fiction or fantasy though I will admit- it certainly did not wear well on him. But then, it did not belong to him. This particular battle with PERSPECTIVE was, after all, MINE. My husband, it seems, had not, for all his insinuatation to the contrary, undergone an out-of-body experience.

He had simply experienced a ‘day in the life’ of – ME. Me, without a career which afforded me an actual title. Me, without a paycheck coming in weekly or monthly. Me, without a clear-cut plan for executing a clearly defined set of goals for the day. A day in the life of ME.

It is perspective on my daily life, perspective on my role in my family, in this world extending beyond my four walls, perspective on my meaning, my purpose, what it is exactly that I DO and if it carries any significance at all… it is perspective that MOST OFTEN gets the better of me, if I let it.

This conflict with perspective rages sometimes when I’m not even aware of it, as I simply go about my days following the rhythms of normal-crazy family life, filling my children’s endless chasm of needs, tending to the eternal ‘household-to-do’ list… It remains the backdrop of my life, acknowledged or not, and I found it humorous, while I fight for the right perspective daily…that my husband, in one profound ‘revelation,’ after a comparatively minuscule period of time spent in my world, found himself nearly undone by the struggle for Godly perspective of a stay-at-home-Mommy.

“Do YOU know what I mean?”

Do YOU?

In my absolute certainty, let me confide that I believe you DO. Even if you don’t have multiple kids. If you have one, two or three. If you have four, or like me, have or are about to have five, I don’t think this is a foreign concept. And so, may I present a verse to you? Return us to the bit of scripture that has the power to both torment OR set us free IN the midst of the artillery and shrapnel of this particular daily assault on God’s plan in our lives?

"I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save a few." 1 Cor 9:22

Does this resonate with anyone out there?

And may I also take the liberty here to confess to you, my sisters, my friends, my fellow Mommies, that if indeed scripture is alive, (and I believe it is) this particular little bedbug keeps me tossing and turning far too often at night when it's dark and my vision is blurred. And it can follow me right into morning if I let it.

Yes. On days lacking true, Godly perspective on my life, my role in this lifetime and any significance it may carry, I could easily read this verse and hear:

"I do everything all the time for everybody and apparently for very little reason.”


THAT is how I could read it, and admittedly do on some days. That interpretation is precisely why I’m writing this devotion. And why I’m determined to prove to myself and to you that perspective is nothing short of critical. My fleshly adaptation of this verse can equal defeat at best on any given day, but God’s promise offers victory and even, distinction. My warped version results in frustration, insignificance and even- on some days, the loneliness that accompanies utter invisibility. God’s rendition, however, leads me right back into the light of perfect identity IN my invisibility.

Is that possible? Is that not a contradiction in terms? Perhaps in the world’s eyes it is. But let’s resolve to blink HARD and figure out wherein we might both read and lay hold of the significance WITHIN our servitude.

To be continued…