My sweet sister-in-law Jules, is pregnant with their first little babe, and Marmie and I are giving her a baby shower up home. My gift to her will be two of my most absolute favorite "parenting books":
"Sacred Parenting" by Gary Thomas
and "Tender Mercy for a Mother's Soul" by Angela Thomas Guffy.
There are SO many parenting "How To" books out there on everything from getting your baby to sleep through the night to potty training....and Lord knows I've read my share of them...and still do! But these ones are all about taking care of our soul and how God uses our kids to actually shape our souls and cause us to draw closer to Him during these years. I love LOVE them.
Anyway....
This is what I'm reading to Julie at some point in her shower. Most of it is taken from Gary's "Sacred Parenting" book. Everytime I read it - it makes me teary, and it brings SUCH clear perspective for me on how God views what I'm doing as truly sacred and as something that is of vital importance....
**********
There once was a beautiful young Mama named Julie, who after just a few short years of marriage decided to set aside her very successful career of Physical Therapy for a short time and instead embark upon a crazy adventure called "Motherhood."
Julie had wanted to be a Mama for sometime now....and she cherished the opportunity to stay home and build into and raise up this tiny little person that together she and Aaron had made. Most days she loved what she did - she was fulfilled and felt that she was doing exactly what she had been made to do.
But, Julie, like most young mothers sometimes struggled a bit in adjusting to this change in her lifestyle. Just a few years before, she had been in what our culture would call her "prime," looking her best, working out at the gym whenever she felt like it, doing whatever she wanted on a Friday and Saturday night, and having lots of fun. Now she was married, a mother, staying home with a child, trying to get her own body back into shape, covered in her own milk and the baby's spit-up, and unable to do anything first without getting a babysitter.
Before becoming a mother, it was very easy to measure the productivity of what she was doing - especially by the world's standards. She was successful in her career, and this had always been rewarded in pay raises and checks - visible rewards for her hard work. It is a little more difficult to measure the success of this job called "Motherhood!" It comes with no pay raises, most things need to be RE-done the very next day....if not multiple times during that SAME day, and most times no-one even sees what is being done to constantly try to maintain some semblance of order and structure amidst the chaos and mess of a typical day.
This is just a story....but if ever Julie DOES feel these things, may she feel GREAT surprise and delight in discovering that her act of welcoming this child into the world is the very act so HIGHLY regarded by Jesus at the judgement:
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me." ~ Matthew 25:35-36Who gets hungrier than a newly awakened baby desperately searching for milk?
Who is more naked than a recently born child?
Who is more a stranger than an infant who comes into this work knowing no-one?
Who gets sick more often than a little one, who seems inclined toward ear infections, diaper rash, and colic?
When a mother welcomes a child into the world, feeding her and giving her drink and clothing him and holding him when he gets sick....she is doing EXACTLY what Jesus tells us will be MOST rewarded in Heaven!
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the LEAST of these brothers of mine, you did for me!" ~ Matthew 25:40Understanding God's joy in his own creation is one of the more profound spiritual experiences we will ever know. In the process of caring and loving, we bring God great pleasure! In those moments, you become His provision, His comfort, His passion. Through great pain you gave birth to this child, and with even greater pain you make daily sacrifices to love this child. Your Heavenly Father doesn't miss a second of this sacrifice. He sees it all. He cries with you and He laughs with you and He takes GREAT joy in the good work you are doing!
May you never forget that this journey of motherhood, this career change into parenthood is a sacred enterprise. God can baptize dirty diapers, sleepless nights, and toddler tantrums in order to transform us into people who reflect the image of Christ. Parenthood is new territory - sacred territory defined by the children that God has given us to teach us His lessons in love and life. Yes, by God's grace, we may teach our children a few things along the way. But more than that, God will use our kids in our lives to shape US. They will teach us how to sacrifice and how to handle guilt, they will school us in the art of listening, and they will force us to our knees in prayer. They will show us how to laugh and how to grieve, they will cause us to live courageously, and they will help us face our inadequacy and our need - and above all, our reliance upon the One who is greater than we are....and the One who gave us these gifts on loan in the first place.
The truth is, we are living in the midst of holy teachers. Sometimes they spit up on themselves or us. Sometimes they throw tantrums. Sometimes they cuddle and kiss and love us. In the good and the bad, they mold our hearts, shape our souls, and invite us to experience God in ways we have never known.
Welcome to this new adventure, sweet Julie! May God bless you with grace and love abounding! May your children rise up and call you blessed! And may you NEVER doubt that this adventure you are about to embark on is one of the things that God most highly regards and finds pleasure in, and that it is a "career" He sees as sacred and of vital importance!
**********
