Much of my life I have spent out of the hustle and bustle of society.
When I was eleven I became ill and was on home instruction until I graduated form high school.
My days were spent at home with my mother.
We sewed, we baked, we cooked.
I read and read and read,
And I wrote.
For long periods of time, I was confined to bed, too weak to hold my head up.
They were difficult days, and if I had my druthers, I would never have chosen to walk that lonely path.
I begged God to make me well.
I wrote long letters to Him in my journal.
I remember one summer my sister and I read the Bible from cover to cover. I remember laying in bed with her reading the words of God and learning to trust Him.
I found Him there, amidst the brokenness and the longing.
In those seven years apart, I came to really know God.
I did eventually go away to college and graduate school, and I worked for a while after that. Then I met Mark and the babies began to come, and I was home again.
And I have been home for eighteen years.
Oh yes, I have gone to church and to the market. I’ve gone to school functions and homeschool functions, but the vast majority of my time has been spent at home learning to keep my house and parent our children.
My days are filled with what many would call the mundane, with cooking and cleaning, caring for and teaching our children.
Many days seem hard and long.
Daily I pour myself out here in our home. Daily, I choose to be gentle, to love.
And I find God here.
He is here amidst the children’s chatter and their quarrels. He’s in the kitchen with me as I cook, and around our table during homeschool.
He’s here as I am teaching our children to love even when they don’t feel like loving.
He’s here growing my children when one of my teens comes to me and says, “Mom, I’m sorry.”
He’s working in our midst.
Lately, this verse has been on my mind.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~ James 1:27
But it’s not the first part of the verse that I’ve been pondering.
I know we’re called to care for the least of these. I know it in the deepest part of me. We are Christ’s body, and we are here to serve just as He served.
But it’s the words, “and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” that keep running through my head.
And I wonder.
I wonder what that means for me, and for you.
Do we crowd Him out when we are too busy? Do we come to know Him amidst all the seeming urgencies this world esteems so highly?
Does this world and all of its trappings call too loudly when we are too busy?
I wonder.
One thing is certain. God is here amidst the gentle routine of my days. He is here in my daily working and serving and loving. He’s here with me in the teaching and in the obeying.
It is here in my home that He stretches me, that my patience is perfected, that I have learned to trust Him.
It is here I have learned to believe.
Perhaps that is where we find Him, not on the mountaintop, but in the mundane rhythms of our days.
Blessings All!
I agree that our most valuable service to our family is while we are in our home, in the mundane routine. Creating a place of comfort, security, and peace where members of the family can retreat to. I firmly believe that when we raise our children with the idea that they must be involved in every opportunity available, they become adults that have a hard time finding contentment and pleasure in the simplicity of life. We are so able to reflect God’s love in our service at home!
Absolutely beautiful! Thank you for the reminder, Diane! Sadly, I did not fully discover this truth until just recently while mothering my Phase II adopted daughters! It is my “do-over” and I will never stop thanking God for this incredible opportunity to find Him HERE- at home- in my service to Him! THIS is my offering to Him and there is nothing in my life that brings such JOY as this…
I have begun to ask Him for MORE (yes- children!), so that I can multiply my offering for His glory! Waiting for Him to whisper in hubby’s ears….
Together for His glory,
Lori McCary