Matthew 13:31-16:20
“When Jesus heard about [the death of John the Baptist], He withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone.” Matthew 14:13
Sometimes, you just need to be alone, even when you’re the Son of God. And that was my day today – alone.
I’ve been trying to share this with you all week long. Last Tuesday I spoke at the Northview MOPs meeting and I got enough positive feedback on the message that I felt it was important that I share it on the blog too! 😀 Enjoy!
The other day as I was doing my laundry and trying to tune in to God to see what He would like to talk to you all about tonight, I found myself doing the “If you give a Moose a Muffin” thing.
So I decided I needed to write the Mom version of that book:
It’s called if you give a Mom a Mission, by Tamar Knochel.
If you give a mom an adorable baby she’s going to need a camera to take pictures of it!
And when you give a mom a camera, she’s going to fill it up with pictures of that adorable baby.
When her camera fills up with pictures she’ll realize that she needs to dump them onto her computer.
When she goes to her computer to dump them she’ll notice that she has a new email.
When she checks her email she will notice that the baby is out of milk.
When she goes to the kitchen to fill the sippy cup she will notice the dirty dishes in the sink,
but won’t be able to do anything about them because as she is pouring the milk she will spill it on her clothes.
When she goes to change her clothes she will notice that the laundry hamper is overflowing and will take it to the laundry room.
When she accidentally drops a clean sock on the floor she will notice that the floor needs swept… so she sweeps the entire floor, because you know as well as I do that once you start you can’t stop!
When she finishes sweeping the floor and stands back to admire her work she will see the baby dumping milk out of his sippy cup onto the clean floor.
When she grabs a paper towel to clean up the mess she notices that the counter needs wiped off as well.
As she is finishing wiping down the counter she will look at the clock and realize that it’s time to feed the baby.
When she makes lunch for the baby she ends up making a mess on the briefly clean counter, but she can’t clean it up now because the baby is howling. Mental note: “Must clean counter later”.
When the Mommy is almost done feeding the baby it has a huge blow out all the way up its back, baby needs a bath!
When the baby is in the bathtub the Mommy remembers just how stinking adorable the baby is and must take future incriminating nude baby photo for its graduation party.
When she takes her phone out to snap the photo she hears her toddler from the other room throwing blocks.
When the Mommy goes to the other room to remind the toddler about throwing blocks she sets the dripping baby on the floor in order to focus attention on the wayward toddler.
When the still naked baby spits up on the carpet the Mommy has to use baby’s wet towel to clean the floor.
When taking the wet towel and dirty baby clothes to the laundry hamper it reminds Mommy of the wet laundry in the washer.
When she switches the laundry over she remembers she needs to sort the kids’ out-of-season clothes.
When she goes to the sink to get the bags for the out-of-season clothes, she will see the dishes and the counter have not cleaned themselves! How dare they!
When she sees the dishes and counter she picks up the washcloth to at least clean up her mess.
When she cleans up her mess she notices that it’s almost time to eat again.
When she starts cooking, her toddler asks her for help in the other room.
When her husband comes home and smells the smoke he suggests pizza for dinner.
When Mommy picks up the phone to order pizza she remembers she needs to pay the phone bill.
When she remembers she needs to pay the phone bill she decides to order pizza on the computer while she pays the phone bill. (Moms are champion multi-taskers!)
When she gets to the computer she sees the still open email from earlier… must… finish… email.
When the email closes she gets a Facebook notification, so she opens up Facebook.
Half an hour later her toddler comes up to her and says, “Mommy, I’m hungry”. Oh CRUD! PIZZA!
Breathe…
When the pizza comes she takes it to the kitchen where the dirty dish is running away with the dirty spoon and there is some cow juice that’s starting to look like the face of the moon! Siiiigh… paper plates will have to do.
When she pulls out the paper plates, the “bad mom” voice begins to chime in, “You can’t do this, you’ll never win…”
Who else has heard that voice?
I know I have! You know what?
THAT VOICE LIES!
Day, after day, after day we do everything we can to do what’s best for our families. And I don’t know about you, but for me it seems like the harder I try to be a good mom the more I feel like I’m failing at it. I want so desperately to do a good job and honor God by bringing these kids up in a way that will glorify Him. I pray about it often.
One day I was driving with a heavy heart full of this Mommy guilt when God pulled Matthew 25:31-40 through my brain.
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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 took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you took care of Me; I was in prison and you visited Me.’
Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or without clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visit You?’
And the King will answer them, ‘I assure you; Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
And in that moment it hit me, who is less than a child? They have no money to give, no great awards of praise or gratitude. And yet how many times have YOU, my Mommy friend, filled a hungry belly?
How many times have you given a drink to a thirsty throat?
How many complete and total strangers have you instantly fallen in love with the moment you laid eyes on them in the hospital and taken them home with you?
How many times have you cleaned and clothed a naked little body?
How many times have you nursed a sick little soul back to health?
How many times have you gone to visit and free a prisoner from behind crib bars?
My dear Mommy friend, when you kiss those pink cherub cheeks, you kiss the face of God!!! No matter how menial, or unpleasant, un-noticed, or un-thanked we are for the job of mothering, if it’s done for Christ, it will LAST! We may “only” be tidying things for a fleeting second, but in reality the impression it leaves will last forever!!!
Matthew 6:19-21 says,
“Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where you treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Every single “mom thing” you do places a deposit in your eternal treasury. We may feel like we’re not making any headway, but we are! This past weekend I sat in a room with three different families where there were three generations of each family present. And I could SEE the things that those grandparents passed on to their children had been passed on to their grandchildren! The things that those moms did at the time for their own children lasted. They were passed down to the next generation!
The things YOU do every day may disappear with the twinkling of your eyes, but they haven’t vanished forever. Those little touches that you put on dinner, that no one points out. That layer of dust that you removed only to have it reappear the very next day. That washer that never seems to get it’s fill of dirty laundry. Those things SEEM trivial, meaningless, pointless, they’re NOT!
They matter.
YOU matter.
And I promise you that everything you did today was seen by God, even if no one else saw it, He did. God saw YOU today because YOU matter to Him. What you do matters to Him. He wants a relationship with you so desperately. And if you don’t feel like you have a relationship with Him right now, then now is the time to start one! He’s been tugging at each and every one of your hearts about something lately, I want you to think about that thing right now.
Think about that thing that’s been weighing you down.
Hold your hands out like you’ve got that thing in them.
Now ball up your fists as tight as you possibly can.
With your eyes closed to the entire world around you see Jesus standing before you holding out His hands to you… to take that thing that’s been so heavy on your shoulders.
Now, open your hands to Him & Let it go.
Open up the palms of your hands and Give that thing to Him. Allow Him to take your Fear, your guilt, your shame, your pain. Let it go.
That “perfect mom” image that you have in your head, let it go.
God didn’t make you to be perfect. He made you to be YOU. Perfectly imperfect in every way. Sweetie, He didn’t give your kids to just anybody, He gave them to you and He gave them to you for a REAASON! He knew that you wouldn’t be, no that you COULDN’T be the perfect mom. And He doesn’t want you to be “that” mom. He wants you to be the mom He made you to be, filled with imperfections and glorious inability. He made you to NEED HIM. He made you to need His help and His direction and His love. He made you imperfect so that you would seek out His perfection!
Think about that for a minute, if you were perfect, you wouldn’t need Him. So why would an amazingly all-knowing God create you to be perfect? He wouldn’t. And He didn’t. And at some point you have to come to the point where you’re Ok with that. Where you’re Ok with not being perfect and God’s grace is sufficient for you.
No, you are not, nor will you ever be THE perfect mom.
BUT. You are THEIR perfect mom, and that’s a beautiful thing!
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Tamar Knochel 