All of my life I've struggled with Illusions of Grandeur...or actually, the pursuit of it. That is to say, I've always needed to be the best. Not that I was, but I had the ever present desire to be important, respected, accomplished, successful...to be a "someone." Within the last two years God has been telling me that I need to learn what the term "content" means. I had Bible verses about it all over my fridge, trying to heal from my need to be seen as a success. But I wasn't able to change my heart as much as I tried.
Last year that need in me died. In a big way. All of my priorities have shifted and now all I want is to obey God, love my family, and do my share to take care of them in whatever menial way that God sees fit. To have my family together is really what life is about for me. I don't need to be anyone except a mommy.
Though I still hate doing laundry, despise dishes, and dread mopping my floors, I do it with much less grumbling. I've started to see that by obeying God in the small things, and not needing more, I am finally happy. Instead of striving for happiness I've found it in the menial, repetitive, unnoticed tasks of being a mom.
I was thinking today about how God loves the unnoticed. He always picked the most unlikely characters. He never went for the most attractive, or the richest, or the smartest. In fact, I can't think of a single time that God picked the cool guy.
By today's standards even Jesus would be a total failure. He didn't win over crowds (he dispelled them as soon as they were gathered with hard concepts like, "you have to eat God.") He wasn't respected by the religious elite. The Word of God didn't publish a single book in the Bible. The Healer didn't have a respected practice in Beverly Hills. The Light of the World mostly hung out with the sludge of society. Jesus was not successful.
And yet Jesus is everything the Father desires, and his unsuccessful life brought God glory. When we obey God, even when it's totally unnoticed and when it doesn't earn us respect or success, it is exactly what brings the Father glory. And he accepts that as glory, from unremarkable people like us doing unremarkable things like doing the dishes with an attitude of praise.
In becoming unimportant, and by embracing that, I'm happier about being a mom. The interruptions and setbacks (poop in the tub, swallowing legos, sand all over the clean floor) are less of setbacks and are now "part of the territory." So I'm not as cranky at the kids. I'm enjoying them more and trying to escape less. I'm not trying to fast-forward through my days, but best I can, enjoy my family. Not that I always succeed, but it's not about success for me anymore.
Now that I have time to be a mom again, I'm resetting all my attitudes thoughts and starting from scratch. And I am happy.
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