Facing a Task Unfinished

Facing a task unfinished is no easy thing.  It can not be checked off as completed.  This unfinished task beckons me when I wake and moment by moment throughout the day.  This task often interrupts my sleep, my plans, and my desires, yet it is my calling in this season.  This task exposes my shortcomings.  It teaches me my strengths.  It empties me.  It fills me.  It takes me down roads of unplanned adventures.  It brings me great joy.  It refines me and drives me to my knees. 

To raise little ones that, Lord willing, know the Father's love and on their own seek to make His name great and bless this hurting world with their unique giftings is my longing. 

Mothering well to me can easily be defined by my feelings or a standard I will never attain.  At the end of the day, did I do it well?  Well to me is unattainable.  Did I create a home of happiness?  Did I teach life skills that were honed?  Did the home stay tidy?  Did meals get cooked from scratch with many colors of the rainbow?  Were many books read?  Was creativity evoked in each budding mind?  Are my children learning the Bible?  While all these desires are good, they can easily become a chain around my neck.  When I let these standards become my measuring stick, I end short every day and my household feels like a pressure cooker.  

A few years ago, I learned another way.  I found a well worn path created by many that have gone before me.  (Excellent article here that details that point). 

After the birth of our 5th child three years ago, I came to the end of myself after the complications I experienced from that birth.  I began to realize that wisdom meant asking others whom we respected and had raised children purposely (I did not say perfectly) many questions.  What are things you did well?  What are areas you failed, and what did you learn from those failures?  How did you deal with homework?  How did you deal with screens?  How did you deal with laziness, etc?  How did you prioritize your marriage? 

I started walking in community in a new way and a weight was lifted.  God provided such sweet mentors who came unto my path as I cried out to Him for help.  Around this time I also began listening to the Seven Rivers Parenting Sermons over and over , and most recently my husband and I have spent a lot of time being trained by Connected Families - a great online grace-based parenting resource with podcasts, seminars, and coaches.  Connected families also has a book called Discipline That Connects With Your Child's Heart.  This fall I also joined Loving Moms class at our church that breaks into small groups teaching skills in mothering.    

In the recent years as I have grappled with what the desired end result of my mothering is, I have decided that mothering is primarily about raising children who are equipped to be healthy and function as adults, and for that to happen, I must abandon my independence for a season. I must empty myself so that they can thrive.  Tim Keller explains sacrifice in his book, Jesus the King, chapter 12. "When you have children, they're in a state of dependency. They have so many needs; they can't stand on their own. And they will not just grow out of their dependence automatically. The only way your children will grow beyond their dependency into self-sufficient adults is for you to essentially abandon your own independence for twenty years or so. When they are young, for example, you've got to read to them and read to them - otherwise, they won't develop intellectually. Lots of their books will be boring to you. And you have to listen to your children, and keep listening as they say all kinds of things that make for less than scintillating conversation.

And then there's dressing, bathing, feeding, and teaching them to do these things for themselves. Furthermore, children need about five affirmations for every criticism they hear from you. Unless you sacrifice much of your freedom and good bit of your time, your children will not grow up healthy and equipped to function. Unfortunately, there are plenty of parents who just won't do it. They won't disrupt their lives that much; they won't pour themselves into their children. They won't make the sacrifice. And their kids grow up physically, but they're still children emotionally - needy, vulnerable, and dependent. Think about it this way: You can make the sacrifice, or they're going to make the sacrifice. It's them or you. Either you suffer temporarily and in a redemptive way, or they're going to suffer tragically, in a wasteful and destructive way. It's at least partly up to you" (Tim Keller).  

As my body, my energies, my sanity, my resources, & my time are depleted and stretched day after day, Jesus uses this gift of mothering to force me to see all the areas I fail to love God with my whole heart and how I fail to truly love my neighbor as myself.  As I  beg the Lord for patience and forbearance and grace, he really does work it in me.  When I fail, I repent, and my home changes for the better. I really believe that there is something very powerful about seeing a person admit their faults and seek change.  

I am learning the importance of surrounding my family with others and the church- for we were created to do life with people.  As we live life in community we glean from others and new wind blows into our sails, and we in turn refresh others.  

Not only is it important to do life with others and love the church, but it is extremely important to impart a life of service to our children and that is primarily caught not taught.  Children must see us sacrificing for them and to others as we are able.  This is a favorite book - Raising World Changers in a Changing World - and provides great discussion at the dinner table about this very topic.     

Nearer my God to thee is the key to mothering.  Not my works but my rest.  The more I run to Jesus knowing that I will never do or be enough, the more my soul is at rest because Jesus is enough and he did enough and He loves my children more than I can even imagine and will help me in the daunting task of mothering.  As I embrace these principles, my task that is still quite unfinished of raising children becomes less burdensome and more joyous.