Motherhood

(This amazing family photo was taken by Ryan Price- commercial for him coming soon!)

First of all- I praise the Lord today for the mother I have! What a godly example for me and source of wisdom she is! Yesterday, I had the rare opportunity to go to lunch with her just the two of us. It was awesome! The hours flew by while we talked non-stop and I treasure that kind of precious time with her. I love you Mom!

I'm telling you, I think Mother's Day is better than a birthday.
First, because you don't get a year older.
But mostly, because it's just a day to celebrate motherhood. And that is something that I enjoy very much!
Being a Mom is the best job I can imagine.
It's hard to explain motherhood before you're there- it begins quite appropriately with giving birth. What could be more difficult and painful and beautiful and joyful at the same time? It's seemingly so contradictory.
Being a mother is definitely sanctifying, challenging, trying.
But it's brimming with joy and beauty. It's the highest vocational calling I could hope for. It's teeming with purpose and big picture value.
The Lord has heaped his rewards on us through a full house of children. I can only be thankful today!
My day started with breakfast in bed brought in by four beaming little faces. They were so proud of the work they'd done! They had been planning this breakfast all week, and they awoke with a start and a purpose in making me feel loved this morning.
Treston wandered into my bedroom with crazy hair and sleepy eyes and said "Happy Birfday Mama". Seriously! What is cuter than that!?
I then got to watch an old movie I'd had from Netflix for a month but haven't had time to watch, while I cut out my Sunday coupons with little helpers on the bed. It's called "Woman of the Year" and was made in 1942. I just grab all the old, old movies I can find on Netflix because I really can't tolerate movies made in color anymore. I just adore the classics! I didn't know what it was about, and strangely enough it was a poignant statement about womanhood and the feminist movement from it's early days. Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (who I now know I love! I wasn't familiar with Spencer Tracy so much) were the stars, and it's a story of a marriage between a career man and frontrunner in the femininist movement and career woman. Turns out, she is the "woman of the year" in her career world, but not-so-much of a wife and "no woman at all" according to her husband. This is not the kind of statement and real-life conflict you will find in the movies anymore. But it's legit.
In my prayer hour this morning, my heart was heavy for women to value their place in the home. Our roles as wives, helpers, mothers, managers and workers in the home (Titus 2), and servants in the church are all biblically mandated. I want us to see our work as God does! This is more than being a maid and a chauffeur. Under the leadership of our husbands, we are teaching and disciplining and loving our children, and it's all about pointing them to Christ! What is our ultimate goal for them? It is for them to love God with everything in them and serve Him wholeheartedly. What I'm doing with them daily has everything to do with THAT. We are not just washing clothes just to get dirty again, or making meals just to watch them disappear before our eyes, or even cleaning floors that get muddy moments later. Our real work is not futile. All of it is valuable, even the tasks that appear futile on the surface. This is the work God has laid out for us. God knows what is good for us. He has given us these roles based on the skills and gifts He's equipped us with. And in Proverbs 31:28-30, he reveals something vital to our understanding of this role. "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he blesses her: 'Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.' Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."
Why do we seek reward, satisfaction, and recognition elsewhere? Fearing the Lord and serving our husbands and families is where it's at.
This is not an indictment on women doing any work outside the home. So don't e-mail me ugly things. I know the Proverbs 31 woman turned a profit with her handiwork. But she was an excellent manager of her home first and foremost. She was a blessing to her husband (v. 11-12). She was...well I'll save the full-blown Proverbs 31 Bible Study for another day.
This is simply to say: Today I feel celebrated. I feel that all I'm doing in the home is truly of eternal value and I am overwhelmed with the satisfaction of it all. Remember what I wrote about sanctification and trials? I'm not discounting that. I'm quite familiar with it, in fact.
But God's plan for women is good. And I feel blessed beyond measure to be a wife and mother and manager of this home. When I see these things as being anything but a blessing, I have lost my proper focus and slipped into a selfish and ungrateful attitude.
I recently read an amazing book called "Feminine Appeal" by Carolyn Mahaney. I highly recommend it for married and single ladies alike. I was challenged by so many areas I would like to grow in as a wife and mother! I have much room to grow! I took intense notes while I read this book to discuss it all with my husband. What a fruitful time it was! I want to be humbly asking the Lord, as we celebrate motherhood, what can I do better? This life is a blessing, and I want to be a good steward and make all I can of it.
Happy Mother's Day, Moms!
I hope you feel blessed today too!