The Gift of Work
It’s 9am. ‘Breakfaaaast!’ The voices from throughout the house crescendo as everyone makes way to the hub of our home: The Kitchen. This is the moment we’ve all been working towards! Chairs scuffle and bang as we settle into our seats and thank the Good Lord for yet another nourishing meal.
Let’s rewind. Around 7:30am, I open the curtains, and a gentle light fills the room as the children lie in their beds becoming aware that their peaceful slumber is coming to an end. It is often quiet and precious. The calm before the storm.
Once everyone emerges from their beds, I hear drawers and doors opening and closing. Without many words, a beautiful dance and a chorus of sounds welcome the new day. Eggs cracking, dishes clanging, zippers zipping, water running, and the morning wouldn’t be complete without a fight over who gets to dress the baby. These are the sounds of productivity. These are my proudest moments.
I look around at a bustling home amazed at what we are becoming. Just a few years ago, I was the only capable set of hands in the home at this time of day. Dad was off to work, and I was left to manage a house full of toddlers. I can still remember a mom of many encouraging me during those years. “This is the hardest season. You are the hands and feet for everyone. One day, they will be capable.” Thanks, Karen 🙂
I knew that deep down, but it was still hard to imagine as I brushed every set of teeth, bathed every little body, prepared every meal, fed every fire, washed every dish, folded every load of laundry, put away every grocery, prepared every pot of coffee, made every bed, wiped every counter, organized every room… I can remember feeling like the tide would never turn, but oh, dear sisters, the tide has turned! I now serve as the center-mid of the home. The glue. The director. The manager. The gap-filler. The MOM.
Our oldest is eleven, and I just about welled up with tears the other day when she walked over to conquer a massive pile of dirty dishes without even being asked. As she rolled up her sleeves, preparing to face the challenge, I thought, “Wow. She is going to make a great mom.” Not because she knows how to wash a dish. But because, in that moment, she was willing to set her own fleshly desires aside for the betterment of the family. I know she would much rather be off reading The Green Ember for the fourth time, but instead she blessed us with that single act of servitude, and not only are we better for it, but so is she. I pray she is seeing those lines connect.
It is our goal to bless our children and our children’s future family by preparing them to be resilient and selfless. Ninety-five percent of my battle through motherhood was recognizing that the more I try to serve myself, the less fulfilled and happy I am. ‘For whoever wants to save their life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it,” Matthew 16:25. Sounds like an oxymoron, but somehow it makes complete sense. Our Lord’s gentle nod for submitting to His will over our own.
Sometimes people ask me how I do everything I do on a daily basis. The truth is, I don’t do it. WE do it. Our family is a unit. It is a blessing to be a part of something so productive and life-giving.
We are told that kids are liabilities. Burdens. Life suckers. But the Bible says they are a reward. A blessing.
As their parents, it is OUR responsibility to help shape them into the blessing they were designed to be. We are called to ‘train up your children in the way they should go.’ It is beneficial to ask ourselves if we are fulfilling that role. Maybe we should start there. What does that look like? What should we train them to be? Truth is we are training them to be some way. But is it ‘the way they should go‘??
I encourage you to grab a blank piece of paper and sit down with your husband to cast a vision for your family. Start with some adjectives that you would be proud to have people use to describe your children. A few that immediately come to mind: God-fearing. Kind. Integrous. Hard working. Modest. Selfless. Joyful. Mindful. Self-Controlled. Then take a minute to honestly ask yourselves if you are training them to become those sort of people. If so, talk about how that is going well. If not, talk about ways that you might have to shift life to encourage that kind of character.
I truly believe that the Lord uses WORK as a vehicle for our character to be refined. Through the menial tasks of each day, our sharp edges are smoothed over as we roll along in this river called life. Work is GOOD. You know how I know that? Because God ordained it before the fall of man. If this has you scrunching your brow, you aren’t alone. I, too, thought that Adam and Eve spent their pre-sin days reclining in the garden, eating grapes and being fanned by celestial beings, as the birds chirped and the lion sunbathed with the lamb…And then I read the Bible. According to Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” Seeing that verse really helped me to see work for the blessing that it is. After all, it was part of God’s original design <3
I used to feel bad about asking my kids to do just about anything. Culture tells us to ‘let kids be kids.’ The Bible says, ‘train up those kids in the way they should go.’ Who’s right? As a believer, I’m gonna go with God’s perfect and holy Word. It has taken me a lot of time to truly believe this statement: Childhood is not about protecting our children from anything hard so they can just ‘be a kid’. Childhood is a gentle, tedious, and often lackluster process of learning how to do life so that one is prepared to be an adult.
Does this mean that we expect our children to function as adults? Absolutely not! But through the process of life, they will be trained to endure. Trained to sustain the crashing waves. We must be like “a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against the house and could not shake it, because it had been well built,” Luke 6:48.
Let’s set the foundation for our children on the only rock that saves: Jesus Christ. Let’s build their character to be that house that won’t crumble as the current called culture floods their foundation. Let’s prepare our children to be a light in the darkness. A city on a hill. A royal priesthood.
A person who crumbles at every hard thing does not reflect a God who is in control. Don’t wait for some monumental hardship to teach your children about a God who sustains. We have the opportunity to show them in every small task they are called to. That pile of laundry. The mountain of dishes. The field of potatoes. The messy floor.
You would never expect your kid to do well in a marathon without any training, and even more so, we can’t expect them to do well in life without any training. Every organic moment of life is preparing them for the ultimate race! Our good and gracious Lord has given us the gift of WORK to develop the necessary character to endure and the perseverance that reflects a faith that believes even when it’s hard.