This post is inspired by Gloria Furman’s books “Glimses of grace: Treasuring the Gospel in your home” and “Treasuring Christ when your hands are full.”
From the moment my pregnancy became known to our friends and family as well as after our beautiful baby girl was born, I kept hearing similar phrases of encouragement such as, “get all the sleep you can,” “your hands will be full,” “it’s only a season,” “enjoy your free time now,” “it will be hard, but this too shall pass.” Those were comforting phrases but as I am sure, just like me, many of my fellow mothers have probably found that at the end of a hard day, these phrases are, as Gloria Furman would put it, “like cheap diapers that can’t get you through a spiritual and emotional blowout.” I have only been a stay-at-home-mom a short time and I have already tried so many things to secure a good feeling at the end of each exhausting day of homemaking. Many books and people and resources suggest to just do better at homekeeping, to cook more exciting meals, to have the house more organized, to have better discipline at ME time, to read and exercise, to manage the baby better, and etc. Those things are great and helpful but they can never happen all at the same time and even if they did, my day still would fall short of the perfection and expectations that I put on it. I am glad that sooner rather than later I am realizing that these good ambitions cannot be the measure of how well my day went and they cannot determine my satisfaction with life. Well, if not the things that I do every day over and over then what is the measure of a good day, good home life, good parenting, good Christian mothering?
As I read Gloria Furman’s book “Treasuring Christ when your hands are full,” I came back to the simple truth that would keep me grounded no matter what I do at home. First of all, just the realization that I am a sinner and that I deserve death, shows me how much grace I have in my life when I look around me. Not only did God preserve my life, but also gave me the life of my child. Even though my hands are full with taking care of a toddler, they are full with His blessings. Every day moments of my short life whether laughter or interruptions are invitations to worship the God who gave me life. If you are a mother, you are called to worship God in your mundane. Now you just need ears to hear the call.
As a young mom, it is very easy to allow a sick clingy baby, a missed nap, teething or a tantrum to make you feel like your entire day happens TO you instead of YOU making the day happen. I found myself thinking, “If only I had more time to do this or that, then I would have a good day,” or “if only I had more help around the house, then I would have a better day.” But even if those things were taken care of, I would still be left with my biggest problem: my selfish self, filled with sinful nature. As someone with pretty much no wisdom or experience in anything, I ask God to give me more time or to give me more help, but I forget that the greatest gift than time is His Forgiveness already given to me through Jesus, hanging on the cross and then raising from the dead as well as inviting me into the family of God and eternal life with Him.
By God’s grace, I can wake up every morning before the sunrise because my child has awakened me and look to the ultimate sunrise when Jesus comes and brings the end of darkness forever. I can stop seeing my daughter as an interruption to my agenda of the day and treat her as the gift and an image-bearer that is in need of grace and direction just as much as I am. Whatever it is that you feel is crushing you today, give it to Jesus and watch Him on the cross. He already chose to be crushed by it in your place. Now, you just need to believe it and allow for each moment, sweet of bittersweet to give you glimpses of His graces. And even if the moment seems impossible to see the grace, it teaches you to yearn for the graces that He has prepared for you.
It is easy to see the daily grind of dishes and laundry as an obstacle to the more worthwhile things that could be done in their place. Things such as read a book, exercise, go on a walk, or see a friend. Neither of these things are bad in and of themselves. And if something extra gets added on top of the daily grind like throw up all over the floor, spilled milk, a broken car that needs taken to the shop, it can very easily stir up bitterness and disdain for housework. Gloria Furman confessed that she found this bitterness to spring from a secret desire of ME FIRST. I cannot say that I do not relate. While I do the mundane things around the house, I have this little plan in the back of my head that as soon as I’m done with this, I am truly going to enjoy myself and take a hot bath or read a book and then the baby wakes up early from her nap. Gloria says that if you allow yourself to think like that every day, it builds up into something like, “if only these seasons and years would pass, then I would get my life back.” Oh Lord, please break my bondage of worshiping myself. Please rescue my heart from the wrong affections. Jesus never taught that circumstantial optimism is the essence of a Christian life. He clearly showed that sacrifice is the way to live and that God himself is the source of joy and fulfillment at the end of a weary day.
Sometimes something as simple as reading one’s Bible for five minutes in quiet can be an impossible task. But did God really mean for our children to be an obstacle to our relationship with Him? On the contrary, they are one of the most direct avenues through which He seeks fellowship with us. So what is wrong with the picture then? Perhaps our own definition of what it means to have a relationship with God. Is it only confined to a conditioned environment of peace and quiet of an early morning? Just like you continue to have a relationship with your husband through thick and thin of family life, God is available to us for prayer and wisdom in the midst of all of it. And once we take hold of God in the mundane, we will realize that Christian life is not simply about enjoying this imperfect day better, but living in it with the joy of Christ, which was to give His life and at the same time with our eyes on the cross and the future glory. Because loving like Him is dying a thousand deaths a day. Silence is not necessary for you to have a vibrant spiritual life. “Peace and quiet are not ultimate. Solitude or circus, Christ is ultimate and present in each. Oh would we have the eyes to see and ears to hear him.”
If God doesn’t rule your mundane, he doesn’t rule you.
There is this trend going around social media in sharing either ridiculously perfect pictures or images of complete messes and content in the midst of them normalizing the complaining and the imperfection of home life. “Does either one of those ways provoke in us a thrilling sense of hope in God? Renouncing the beauty of motherhood is just as sinful as idolizing it.” Good or bad circumstances of the day, God is able to make them all bow to His glory and those are the testimonies that will stir up the hearts of other moms. “Oh what lengths did my God go so that my uncertain heart would believe His love and promises?” God wants to fellowship with you in your mess. He wants to fill your heart with His praises, for when it is overflowing with love like His, it becomes impossible to not to treasure Him in your home.
rinatalov 