I wish I could remember the exact quote from yesterday’s sermon. It was something to the effect that, while we tend to crave the dramatic, our faith is sometimes shown best when we are obedient in the mundane. I can’t help but think of that this morning.

Motherhood often seems equal parts miracle and mundane.

Monday is meal planning and Tuesday is bathrooms. Wednesday is floors and Thursday is windows. Friday is grocery shopping and every day is laundry and dishes. Then, sometimes, none of those things happen and you spend the whole week in survival mode. There are days when those mundane things seem so, well, mundane.

I used to crave more. I used to be afraid that I was somehow missing out. Is that okay to admit? The corporate world, which I used to be a part of, did not even miss a beat when I left. There are seasons when my mind becomes too cluttered to write a decent article and the hard truth is that there are a hundred other writers willing and able to take my place. Motherhood, however, is the place where only you and I can do what we do.

Only you can do what you do in your home. Only you can show your children what it looks like, day in and day out, to be a faithful worker and a loving servant. Maybe the gospel is best lived out, not in the dramatic, but in the daily faithfulness to the mundane. Or, then again, maybe the key is that nothing we do is mundane after all.

{Mundane: 

:dull and ordinary

:relating to ordinary life on earth rather than to spiritual things}

It isn’t about washing another load of laundry.

Or making another box of macaroni and cheese.

Or reading another bedtime story.

Or any of those things that we do over and over again.

Motherhood is about a daily dying to self. It is a conscious choice each moment to serve. Much of Christ’s ministry was done amid crowds of people demanding his attention. People were constantly following him and tugging at his clothing completely oblivious to his need for sleep or quiet or food. Even his disciples would suggest that he send people away, but he couldn’t. He knew his time was limited and, so, he was willing to sacrifice personal needs and comforts. There was nothing mundane about what he was doing.

And, moms, there is nothing mundane about what you are doing. When you stay up late cleaning and preparing your home for the next day. When you rise up early to go to work. When you hold that crying baby in the wee hours of the morn. When you stay up late with that teen who is finally willing to talk. When it’s another two days until pay day and you are desperately trying to think of a creative way to use the leftovers in your fridge.

Every day, you live out the gospel. It may look different for each of you, but your children see the same thing. They see love. They see commitment. They see sacrifice. They see Jesus in you.

Keep on keeping on, my friends. You are loved.