Thoughts for everyday Mommy's

One of the privileges we have as missionaries is to have people that pray for us. We send out weekly updates with specific prayer requests to a group of people we have dubbed "Prayer warriors". It is so encouraging to know that people pray for us and the church in Spain.

Earlier this week, we sent out an update requesting prayer for Gus while he is away at a conference, and for me as I stay behind with the boys. The pastor of Oakbrook Bible church, Jean-Paul Chenette, responded to the email with a few sentences to me, to encourage me and remind me of how important my job is as a mom while I stay behind at home. 

Those few sentences were so impactful that for a few days, they kept floating around in my head, encouraging and reminding me of my highest calling as a mother. I asked Jean-Paul if he would expand on those sentences for this blog. I wanted to be more encouraged and I hope you mothers out there are too. 

This below essay is written by Jean-Paul. Every time I have read it, by the end, I am in tears. And I keep re-reading it. Because it is powerful. So very, very powerful. A timely and necessary reminder of why our job is so important. I hope you are encouraged. And thank you Jean-Paul for taking the time to write this. I will not forget these words.

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By Jean-Paul Chenette

To be a mother is to live with a calling that is incredibly unique ... it is just as important, just as exciting, just as everything as any other profession or option, but you have to do it for Jesus, and Jesus alone ... Forget everything else ... everybody (very much including believers) gets caught up in wanting fame and fortune and everything else under the sun rather than just pleasing Jesus (2 Cor. 5:9) ... everything and anything else is total nonsense ... 

So be very very happy ... be the best mommy you can be, the best wife you can be ... and expect NOTHING IN RETURN... just do it for the glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all your needed blessings will flow...

And remember ... one of the devil's best tactics to de-rail a normal, everyday "Mommy" is to discourage her about being a mother (he is such a liar!!) ... to get her to think that her life has now become a waste of time ... yes, she changes diapers and wipes noses and makes sure teeth are brushed and does laundry and laundry and more laundry ... but so what ... anybody could do this ... this is pretty much a waste of time the devil wants her to believe ... her life is now officially wasted ... and then to top it off when the day is done and she's completely exhausted, now she needs to be a really good wife ... and then that brings a whole new set of problems ...

But putting the liar aside for a moment and talking truth, the calling of being a mother (and then the wife) is DIRECTLY FROM the Lord Jesus Christ ... it is glorious and needed and valuable and awesome!!  And its value is not so much in its work but in its calling ... being called by the Lord Jesus Christ to raise perhaps the next generation of worshippers ... of those who will storm the castles of unbelief to spread the gospel of freedom to those in bondage!  Someone needs to raise and feed and wipe these little kids!!  And do this before they trade their diapers and "onezies" in for pants and shirt and a bible and a prayer as they go to preach to a world ... that hates them ...

And these kids will always remember their mothers ... no, not so much the diapers ... but they will remember the woman who gave them her life in a service that was long and hard and boring and tiring ... yet the mommy tried ... again and again to do it well and to do it lovingly and sacrificially ... for Jesus ... so that these kids could ride off into the sunset to fight for the Kingdom ...     

Don't listen to the liar, listen to the Lord ... someone needed to change Jesus' diapers ... and today, in a similar way mommy ... that someone is you ...