Ok so here’s the deal. I have been on a crazy journey since my last post…I had referenced that I’m learning a “New Thing” and have been busy processing, praying, and putting it all together this past month or so. I almost don’t even know where to begin. And for your sakes, I’m trying to keep this post at a reasonable length so I’m going to do my best to summarize here 
So here’s the re-cap: These last couple of “temper tantrums” were sort of the apex of what I’ve been feeling throughout my entire motherhood journey. Though motherhood has brought some great blessing, for a long time I have still felt “incomplete”. My post on The Joy of Motherhood Part 2 sort of summarized the place I landed after reading that book “Crazy Love”. Finally I felt like I was beginning to see a good REASON for why I felt what I did. I felt like I was missing something because I was. This missing piece was basically this: My primary calling as a Christian is to love God…and to love others as myself. I realized I was failing GREATLY in these two areas. That book awakened something in me that began to “scratch the itch”…
But then I was left with how to reconcile that with the life I was currently living. Isn’t motherhood my primary calling? Have I been doing it “wrong” this whole time? What is life supposed to look like then? What does it really mean to love God and love others? Don’t I do that through simply loving my kids? Isn’t this the world He gave me to “act out” the calling of loving others? Shouldn’t this, in some way, be enough???Or to say it more simply – how do I apply what I just learned and KNOW to be true in that book I just read? (Which, by the way, is getting its information from another very important book called THE BIBLE!)
So I began to search out the answers to this. I prayed some more…I sought some clarity. I ended up meeting with a friend of mine that I had met a while back through my old job with Catalyst. I knew she was kind of “out there” in the world, living out her faith in a way that was very different from my world. She is not a mother, but she ended up referring me to a website called www.missionalmom.com – she had barely even looked at the site herself, but thought I might find it helpful.
WOW. I couldn’t believe what I found there. On the front page was a book called The Missional Mom. (If you haven’t guessed yet, God often uses books to teach me some of my greatest lessons). I couldn’t read the book right away (obviously) but there were some discussion questions posted on her site that gave me a clue as to what the book was about. Her questions were EXACTLY the questions I had been asking. What is motherhood supposed to look like? Is it really bringing us joy? If not, why isn’t it???
Needless to say, I was ecstatic. And as I perused her website I found tons of moms, not only asking these questions themselves but ANSWERING them. I felt like I had found the mothership!!! And they all agreed on one thing: Motherhood is NOT our primary calling. I felt affirmed. They all found what I had found…when we fail to remember what our primary calling is, we get caught up in a world that is far too small…and completely miss the point. We also get caught up in the culture’s way of doing life. I am now reading the book and finding even more affirming words. The author, Helen Lee, writes,
“Somehow we have gotten our concept of what the true Christian life is all about confused with the cultural messages of our day. As Os Guiness writes in his book, The Call, ‘For many believers the Christian life is now the good life’. And sadly, he does not mean that in a positive way”.
Or as author Shane Claiborne writes (also quoted in her book),
“I know plenty of people, rich and poor, who are suffocating from the weight of the American Dream, who find themselves heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we put on ourselves“.
At first glance, I would have never thought to describe my life as lifeless toil and consumption. I take my kids to church, I follow God’s principles (usually), I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what was important in life. BUT the pull of American culture is FRIGHTENINGLY strong. And, when I consider that I am in the top 3% of the richest people on the planet, I realize that not only should I be exceedingly grateful for what I have been given BUT I should also feel so blessed that I am living my life looking for every way possible to bless others. I am not doing that. I am consuming way more than I’d like to admit. But God says in his word, “to whom much has been given, much is demanded”. We Americans are the ones that verse is talking about. We have NO IDEA how blessed we are!!!!!!
This reminds me of my first and primary calling – we’re supposed to be out there loving people like CRAZY. And I believe it is to extend far past the confines or our comfy suburban homes. Yes we are mothers, but we are also Christ-followers. Unfortunately, I think we get so caught up in “motherhood” that we completely miss this.
Ok so here’s the good news I’ve found: there is a way to reconcile God’s call on our lives AND the calling of motherhood. God would never be so cruel as to separate them in the first place. There is a way of doing motherhood that embraces our primary calling. But we have to be intentional about keeping our priorities in check. Out-of-whack priorities, especially in the Christian life, have a way of inflicting so much frustration and confusion that we become utterly ineffective (um yes right here)…OR it can have the opposite effect of completely lulling us to sleep to the extent that we don’t even realize we’ve dozed off.
Maybe this is all old news to some of you but I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve had my perspective backwards for a long time. I found a post on this very website where I wrote almost exactly a year ago these words: “There is no greater calling than to be a parent”. WRONG! It’s a great calling but it’s not the highest. My world shrank and shriveled up when I looked at it that way. It was never what God intended.
In contrast, looking at motherhood through the lens of my PRIMARY calling has changed everything. I am so grateful I am learning this lesson now. And now I realize that I’m not alone. Other mothers all over the place are stepping out of the bubble and into some amazing things. I just didn’t see it before. Moms are finally giving themselves permission to do motherhood very differently…it’s so exciting!
So, armed with inspiration by those who have gone before me, I am now on a mission now to change the way I do motherhood as well. As the saying goes, this is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change. I’m not abandoning the lessons I’ve learned thus far, but I’m now adding to that the idea that there IS more. I still give myself persmission to laugh and have fun in the midst of the mundane. BUT I can SOOOO better do that when it’s in the context of something bigger. There IS more to life than filling my days with playdates and playdough. Oddly enough, it’s that very realization that allows me to find greater joy when I DO find myself in the midst of playdates and playdough! Through reading this book, and through seeing the stories of other women, I am opening myself up to a whole new world of possibilities. I am dreaming bigger dreams and I’m preparing myself for whatever might come next.
This has been a long time coming!! I have been wrestling for 5 years with some of this stuff. I am not one to easily hop on bandwagons or get caught up in trends (well, except in fashion :)) Oddly enough, I worked for an organizaton where books on “missional living” were tossed around all over the place and I never once cared to pick one up and read it. I thought it was another Christian “catch phrase” and it almost irritated me. It’s amazing how God spends time grooming and preparing your heart so that your eyes finally open to what’s been in front of you the whole time. If I had read these books even a year ago, I’m not sure they would have made any sense to me at all.
But today they do! And I’m excited There are already some things brewing and I’ll share more of that in another post, but one of the things I am most looking forward to is leading a Bible study in the fall on this book. I am SO EXCITED for this! I can’t wait to get together with moms “live and in person” to have conversations about this subject. We’re also going to be “practicing” what we learn by taking part in some community projects and service opportunities WITH our kids. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this.
In the meantime, check out www.missionalmom.com. I am looking for some women to read this book with me this summer. You can order it right off of amazon.com. I have a few friends who have already committed to taking this journey with me. Will you consider being one of them???!!!
That’s all for now….guess my post wasn’t that short afterall. I really stink at that. Before I go, I”ll leave you with one last quote from the book…
“Missional moms find ways to affirm their roles as mothers and wives without losing sight of their primary calling – to pursue God first and foremost and to live out the mission He has given. There may be stretches or seasons in which the needs of our children take an inordinate amount of our time and energy, especially when they are young, and we need to give grace to mothers in those exhausting early years of parenting. At the same time, we must continue to encourage all mothrs, regardless of life stage, to continually ask the Lord for his guidance in prioritizing their lives. As long as we are willing to follow His gentle nudges to serve Him in whatever opportunity He presents, we can avoid the trap of idolizing our family to an extent that is not biblical.”
