Open Letter Campaign

It's Friday again.  I am enjoying this Open Letter Campaign that Lauren started at Traded Dreams.  Why don't you give it a try, too??  Today, I want to speak to stay at home moms.  In our culture, you get little respect.  Everyone, even the paperwork you fill out at the doctors office, wants to know your "occupation."  I used to cringe just a little writing "stay at home mom" but now I write it with my head held high.  You have the most important job on earth and not only that, the best one.  Be thankful for your days, even the hard ones.  You are training the next generation of leaders.  Train them well.


Dear Stay at Home Mom,

Yes, your days matter.  Even if you don't receive "real" money for what you do.  Even if what you do can't be measured by results on a day to day basis.  Even if your little charges do not accomplish what you put on their to do lists every day (or any day).

Your influence over your children goes so much deeper than you think it does.  When the dishes pile high, and the laundry piles higher, I know you are tempted to despair.  You are tempted to believe that no one notices and no one cares.  You can look around you and see that everything you accomplish today will have to be addressed again tomorrow.  It is an insult to your intelligence for people to try to placate you by telling you how "quickly they grow up."  I know that some days your first thought in response to that is, "not quick enough."  Let's be honest, we have all thought it.

What you need to understand is that mothering is not a sprint, it is a marathon.  It is not a pressure cooker, but a crock pot.  Yes, the dishes must be done again and again and again - in the same day.  The laundry is never ending, and the clutter is insurmountable.  These are the things you can see.  The things that seem at a glance to be a drudgery.  However, when you sweep all those things back and peer beneath the surface you get a glimpse of what God is doing.

First and foremost, He is humbling you.  Yes, this marathon is as much about your sanctification as it is about training your children.  Is that news to you?  It was to me, but if you think about it, you can see that it is true.  No one can replace you in your child's life and we will get to that, but in a pragmatic way, someone else could physically care for your children.  It happens every day, all around the globe.  On the other hand, your children could likely care less about the clutter or the laundry.  Dirty clothes wear just as well to a toddler.  God uses your children and all that caring for them entails to mold you into the servant leader He wants you to be.  To teach you that all things are holy if offered as a humble sacrifice and with gratefulness to the One who created you.  When you lovingly fold and put away those tiny shirts and dresses, grateful for the little bodies they cover, you are offering a piece of yourself to Him.

 You are a mom, so by nature you are caring and tender.  You love your children with a love that is both fierce - think mama tiger when someone tries to hurt them- and a love that is soft and tender - the way you scoop them up and kiss their boo boos when they are hurt, or cry with them over their first heartbreak.  You are not the same person you were before that first bundle of joy was laid upon your chest.  You changed then.  You grew and your heart burst forth from your body, never again to beat exactly the same.  Mothering your children is about wading out into the deep.  Immersing yourself in the only One who sees the little things.  Letting your children follow you to that deep place and in time, they too will be immersed in Him.

Mother's are irreplaceable.  I told you we would get to this part.  You have heard the phrase, "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."  It is cliche, but it is true.  Abraham Lincoln said, "I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life."  Mom, the influence you have on your children will cling to them all of their lives.  Use it well.  The time surely is fleeting, even if the days sometimes drag on and on, bedtime looming like a distant dream.  Your bracket of time is shorter than you think and one day,  before you know it, you will have adults living in your home.  Adults with their own ideas and their own opinions.  However, even the most powerful among us point to their moms as their greatest influence.  Let me prove it:

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

"There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness... The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way."- Andrew Jackson

"I cannot tell you how much I owe to the solemn word of my good mother." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"The future destiny of a child is always the work of the mother."- Napoleon Bonaparte

Mom, you can not yet imagine the influence you are having on your children.  The little things you say, the wisdom you share, and the discipleship you impart.  All of these things will follow them through their entire lives.  Your daughters will mother your grandchildren the way you mother them and your sons will treat their wives the way they have been trained to treat you.  Don't waste your time in bitterness over the drudgery of the day.  Don't screw your face up into a frown because no one notices the hard work you do.  Smile, and smile often.  Scrub the floor, the toilet, and the kitchen sink and offer those moments as a holy sacrifice.  Change that diaper yet again and take that moment to nibble on tiny baby toes.  Laugh with your children.  Walk in the sunshine and run in the park.  Teach them to love work, so that your legacy is one of service and a humble spirit.  Yes, I realize it takes twice as long to bake muffins with a toddler, but the rewards are ultimately so much sweeter.

I have been a stay at home mom for eighteen years.  I have not always appreciated it the way I do now that I have two adults in my home.  I am 2/5 of the way done and I am not ready for it to be over.  I want more time to influence them, more time for them to be in the shelter of our home.  The time was fleeting, those well meaning comments that were so offensive in the middle of the baby and toddler years, were true.  It did go by quickly and I want it back!  Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in me that is naturally humble.  Nothing in me that serves others as part of my nature.  I am a first born - I think the world owes me something.  I think that the dishes should wash themselves and that the kid's first question upon waking should be, "What can we do for you today mom?"  Sorry, but in my flesh it's true.

Yet, mothering has changed me.  It has brought me to my knees and it has shoved me to the foot of the cross as nothing else could have ever done.  There is no other way to go at this journey except fully immersed in the person of Jesus Christ.  As Peter said in the book of John, "To whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life."  Yes, the road is bumpy, yes we fall flat on our faces day after day - but, where else would we go?  Who else cares enough to help us raise our precious treasures to grow up into the adults they were meant to be?  There is no one else.

So, dear Mom, please don't despair when tempers flare and messes are made.  Please don't beat yourself up when you stumble along the way.  If you are a follower of Christ, your sins are covered.  There is no need to dwell in them any longer.  Just rise up, dust yourself off, and start again.  I am in the trenches with you, still training up children from two to fourteen, but at the same time, I have the unique opportunity to also be able to look back.  I have raised two children into adulthood and it is good.  They honestly don't remember the frowns and the stumbles.  They will tell you that they remember the smiles, the days at the park, the flour puffing from the bowl as we baked bread or cookies together.  They remember the books we read snuggled up on the couch and the big bowl of popcorn drizzled with real butter.  God is good that way.  He gives us second chances, and third, and fourth.  He made our little ones resilient and forgiving.  Mom, they love you even when you mess up and so does He.

Hug your babies today and remember that your job does matter.  It means everything to those little ones at your knee, and your Father in Heaven is pleased with your sacrifice.