As we celebrate Mother’s Day, it seems appropriate for me to open up the Motherhood Room of my heart and home to you first. After all, when I meet someone new and they ask me who I am, I ALWAYS start my response with, “Well, I’m a mama of five and…”
It doesn’t matter what else follows because Mama is the name I answer to most and it’s who I think of myself as most of the time. But I haven’t always been someone’s mama and I know a day will come (sooner than I’d care to think about) in which nobody who calls me Mama will reside in my home. If I only know myself as Mama, I’m going to miss out on many great rooms in my heart that our Father God wants to fill.
So, Motherhood is a great room to start building in as long as we don’t try to camp out here and neglect the rest of our hearts.
Before we start to open the door, I think it’s only fair to remind you that motherhood is sticky business. It’s one of the few rooms in our hearts that comes with baggage. Whether you grow up with a healthy mom, a hurting mom, an absent mom, or a replacement mom, you come into your own motherhood with beliefs, standards, norms, and expectations.
When we build our Motherhood Room on the foundation of Christ the Solid Rock, we know that we are about to build something beautiful and holy. Have you ever thought about your motherhood as being holy?
I’ll be honest, when I first became a mama I read all the books and asked all the questions and I filtered everything through my own world view and developed my own theory of motherhood. I got a few things right and a lot of things wrong. I’m raising some amazing kiddos and I’ve left some permanent scars. The amount of therapy these children will need someday will likely pay for some counselor’s summer condo on the beach. And that’s because I’ve spent the last 18 years trying to figure out how to be a Christian mama. I knew my own philosophy of motherhood and I thought I was doing a fairly good job of living out that philosophy as a Christian.
But that is NOT who God called me to be.
God called me to be His. God called me to glorify Him in everything that I do. God called me to live a life of obedience to Him while enjoying communion with Him. Being a mama was just a blessing that He gave me along the way. Over the last few years I SHOULD have been asking Him how He wants me to be a mama while I’m serving Him rather than asking Him how I can serve Him while I’m busy being their mama.
When we get this backwards, none of our building goes quite as planned. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to try to construct the walls and ceiling of a room and THEN pick it up and place it on the foundation? With a great deal of effort you might be able to get a few walls to stand and the roof might look fairly stable but nothing will be completely secure unless it’s built ON the foundation.
Remember that baggage I mentioned that shows up in our Motherhood Room the moment we start to build? If our faith comes secondary to our motherhood, that baggage gets strewn around the room and no amount of decorating can make our room look cohesive. The rare and beautiful treasures God has promised us get lost among the clutter we have yet to deal with. Even the cute bags of precious memories that we’ve toted along from childhood seem to clash with the plans God has for us unless we seek HIS blueprints first before we open the door and step inside.
When we consult with the Master Builder and Designer before we erect the walls of our motherhood, He graciously issues us priceless treasures to adorn our room. But if we start building and decorating on our own, we’ll start to notice many rags among our riches.
Maybe you’re like me and you’ve had it backwards this whole time. Maybe you’ve never even thought about asking God to help you be the mama He wants you to be. Please don’t leave this page without realizing that there is precious hope for each one of us weary mamas.
Regardless of your past, regardless of your childhood, regardless of your motherhood, our Father God wants to bless you with rare and precious treasures. It is never too late to surrender your motherhood (and every area of your life) to Him. I mean it. Yes, I’m talking to you. I’m talking directly to the mama who lost her cool and screamed at her kids today. I’m talking to the mama who doesn’t even know where her teenage son is right now. I’m talking to the mama who wasn’t ready to become a mama and made the choice to end her child’s life before he or she was even born. No matter what your mistakes have been, no matter where your sins have taken you, they can end in hope today.
Our God is a good, good Father and He loves you more than you’ll ever imagine. If you don’t already know Him as your personal Lord and Savior (or if you don’t even know what all that religious stuff means), please click on that CONTACT button above and reach out to me. I want to tell you all about the Father who loves you SO MUCH that He was willing to give His Son for you.
If you already know God and you’ve walked away from Him or maybe you’re walking with Him but you realize that you’ve been looking at motherhood backwards, you can reach out to me, too. I’d love to pray for you, as well. And would you do me a favor? Would you pray for me? I don’t have this motherhood thing figured out just yet but I know the Savior who does.
Father God, thank You for being a good, good Father. Thank You for loving us right where we are and for giving us hope on our darkest days. Help us to shift our priorities so that our motherhood falls perfectly in line under our desire to be the women you’ve called us to be. When we build upon You, our perfect foundation, You are so faithful to give us the wisdom and understanding we need to raise godly little people, our greatest treasures of all. Bless our babies and call them into a saving relationship with You. Amen.
She Builds Rooms of Treasure 