Was just browsing thru my mail updates and was amazed to stumble upon this blog that was just so in line with what Rev. Col Stringer preached yesterday. Awesome sermon yeah? =) For now, it would be to devote myself as a daughter to my family before the one comes along. I guess it's just training myself to love the ones that are closest to me first before I could love others and allow myself to be trained by the one He has appointed over my life.
"...When I was single and before I had children, I was very involved in outside ministries - teaching children, cooking, cleaning, and ironing to help out weary moms, ministering to my grandparents and other elderly individuals, organizing and volunteering for various ministries, and so forth. (One of the benefits of not going to college was that it freed up much of my schedule so I was able to do these things!). My husband and I look forward to the day when we can send our own girls out as ambassadors on our behalf to minister to other families in our church and community like my parents "sent me out" before I was married. And maybe someday when my children are all grown and gone, I'll have opportunities to do things like this again.
At this point in my life, however, I don't feel like it would be right for me to regularly leave my children - even for a few hours each week - in order to reach out to others. My husband and children are my greatest outreach. This means that the phone often doesn't get answered, emails often don't get answered, and I say "no" a lot.
Is this because I'm just a hard-nosed uncaring individual?
No.
It's because I believe with all my heart that raising up the next generation for the glory of God is the greatest ministry, work, and outreach I can be doing. It is far more important than anything else. I don't need to be looking elsewhere for outreach opportunities; I have them right in front of me every day all day long!
Sadly, the world is constantly whispering to women that they must "be more" and "do more" than "just being a wife and mom." As if training and raising up the next generation is not enough.
What is often overlooked is that there is no more noble and glorious calling for a young mom than for her to devote her life to being a help meet to her husband and a mother to her children. That's why you won't see a lot of posts here on outside ministries for moms to do which would require them to leave their children to do so for I believe that the greatest ministry a mom can have is right there in her home training and raising up her precious children to the glory of God!
At the end of my life, I want to look back without regrets. Other people can step in to minister to the needy if I can't, but there is only one person who is called to be my husband's help meet and my children's mother. I want to be faithful to the calling God has given me. There is no greater work I could be doing."
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