MOTHERS WITH BEAUTIFUL FEET

Thinking of all of you wonderful mothers this week. Enjoy your Mother's Day. We at Hope at Home honor you!

Driving down the road in my ginormous brown van feeling stressed and stretched and strained and DONE, I heard the whisper of the Lord posing a simple question. Whenever the Lord asks me a question I know I'm in for some freedom. His questions always seem to lead me out of a problem and into an answer. 

"What would you rather be doing?"

So simple. And immediately my complaints of dealing with sibling arguments, of correcting rude behavior, of dropping off and picking up seven children all within seven years of each other in age, figuring out AGAIN what we would have for dinner--you know the story-- were transformed from overwhelming to strangely satisfying. The plain truth of it was that I would not rather be doing anything else in this world.

Beautiful Feet 

I love a lot about my life; I love a lot about being a mother. I think the thing I like best of all is that I get to create the first forum for the Gospel to be experienced by the seven people that God has given me to mother. Think of the missionaries over time who have had the absolute thrill, the challenge, the honor of taking the Gospel of God's Goodness to a people for the first time. 

"How beautiful on the mountains 

   are the feet of those who bring good news, 

who proclaim peace, 

   who bring good tidings, 

   who proclaim salvation, 

who say to Zion, 

   “Your God reigns!”

Isaiah 52:7 

Isn't that a description of what you and I do everyday-- over and over and over? How often have you "proclaimed Peace" today? (Wouldn't it be lovely if being a Christian family meant the absence of conflict?!) In the thick middle of conflict about whose turn it is to sit in the front seat, or who got to pick the movie last time, or who borrowed whose clothes and didn't return them......, you and I get to be the one who release the Peace of God. Isn't that what we are doing when we walk our children through conflict? How beautiful on these mountains of family life are my feet, and yours, because we are the ones bringing the Good News. 

We mothers have the "Ministry of Reconciliation." 

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

2 Corinthians 5:18-20 

Reconciliation is defined as "making oneself or another no longer opposed, settling a quarrel or difference, making two apparently conflicting things compatible with each other." Hmmmm, strangely familiar?! This ministry is our child's first and primary exposure to the beauty and freedom and power of the Gospel. I truly consider it an honor to have such a ministry, although I must admit that in the middle of conflict and opposition I do not always have thoughts of beautiful feet or being honored! But really, what would I rather be doing with my life? To be able to foster an environment where the truth of God's love is experienced, lived out, enjoyed, challenged, tested......Wow, what a wonderful and honorable calling is motherhood!

No Light or Trivial Thing

Dearest ones, be encouraged in what you are doing in your homes. It is no light or trivial thing. You are doing a kingdom work that bears eternal fruit. Indeed, all those daily tasks and irritating interruptions are actually the God-ordained setting for the proclamation of Peace, the sharing of the Good News, the declaration of Salvation and The Reign of Our God. 

It is true you know--- we mothers do have Beautiful Feet!