I don’t know what your days are looking like right now, but mine are pretty routine. Crazy, busy, but routine, mundane; filled with numerous tasks that will just be repeated tomorrow. Doing laundry, changing diapers, making lunches, sweeping, mopping, paying bills, making repeated requests that are systematically ignored, cooking dinner, checking homework, giving baths, reading bedtime stories, etc… There is very little time to think of myself, much less do something for myself. I am so grateful for a shower everyday. This 5 minute shower is my me time, even though it is often interrupted. It is a great pleasure and a privilege to be home with my children, but let’s face it there just is no boss like an infant or toddler. They will take the food right out of your mouth, and they will barge in on you in the bathroom. You are expected to come running (literally, running) at the sound of a moan, whine or shriek. There are no office hours, and you are always “on call”. Demanding doesn’t even begin to describe it. This is motherhood!
I believe there is nothing on earth like a mother’s love. She will sacrifice anything for her child, but often during the preschool years it is hard to know, in all this self sacrifice, how do I keep my “self”. It is very easy to have an identity crisis. Who am I, and just what am I doing? I have thought about jobs I used to have where I was paid to tell people what to do. My advice was worth money! These children get all of my direction and guidance for free, and still they refuse it!
So, how can I sacrifice myself and preserve myself at the same time? I am not sure that you can. I think we are still ourselves but just in a different season. We must allow our view of ourselves to grow and change. In all this we have an excellent example in Jesus. His humility is well… humbling. Phillipians 2: 1-7, says it this way,” 1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! “
I think most mothers instinctively put the needs and desires of their children first. We do this without thinking. But what is lost on us is how high this calling is. It’s hard to see where the “little things” we do daily have eternal ramifications… That this love that we show our children is in fact a ministry, and that we have the honor of being the first representation of Jesus our children will ever know. Okay, these are big shoes to fill, and in light of this truth our daily tasks don’t feel so mundane. It makes me identify with Christ and ask for his help. It makes me know that what I do needs the grace and power of God. It also lets me know just how much I am loved. For I too am a child who is often oblivious to the great love and sacrifice given for me to live this beautiful life in Christ.