Everyday Wisdom

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Luke 9:23

Being a mother and a wife seems like the hardest thing to do, the hardest thing I have ever done. There are days when God seems far away, although I know He is always near. Draw near to me and I will draw near to you, Jesus said. But drawing near to Jesus is hard when there’s not really much to do, when all that’s expected of me in my day is to watch over my eldest who is a year and a half and my youngest who is almost three months old. People are right in both regards – when they say being a full-time mom is boring and when they say being a full-time mom is the most rewarding (and important) thing in the world.

In many ways, being a mother is incredibly boring. Nothing much happens during the day. There are long stretches of time I want to fill with something – even the inane sounds of day time television. These are the times that are perfect breeding grounds for dissatisfaction, discouragement and doubt, all things that take me farther away from God. Satan, it seems, is always just lurking around the corner lately, waiting for me with his arsenal poised in my head.

Within all the day-to-day minutiae however something pretty incredible is happening – my children are growing up. And it is in precisely these moments when I’m not thinking about what I’m saying, when the temptation to yell at them arises, when everything I do seems to be worth very little, it is in those very moments that they are growing up. And when I actually understand that – when I know that in my bones – the boredom and tediousness of every single day of diapering, laundry, feeding, changing, bathing, planning groceries, planning meals, budgeting, cooking, working, seems to melt away. 

For that is the cup my Father has given me. That is my cross. And I will bear it with gratitude and a certain reverence. For His yoke is easy and His burden is light.