Significance

Yesterday was our first day back at bible study after holiday break. We are reading Captivating by John and Staci Eldredge. What great timing.

I was talking to a friend the other day about how I find it really hard some days to find significance in the every day, mundane tasks I do as a stay at home mom. I long to do something more, to be something, to impress people, really make a difference in the world, to have something to offer.

Doing 10 loads of dishes, laundry, changing dirty diapers, and incessantly picking up messes is not my idea of making a difference. I am almost embarrassed some days when Chris comes home and asks, "what did you do today...?" and I run down the list of tasks I accomplished and then look around the house and everything is now undone, as if the kids and I had been sitting around eating bon bons all day! Now, I know he doesn't feel that way, and never implies it, but I am having a hard time really believing that this little stuff really matters. I want to be significant, to feel important, needed. I want to do something AMAZING. I guess, in a nutshell, I want to feel worthy.

Enter Captivating:
What I am about to summarize hit me like a ton of bricks this morning. Gen 2:18 "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a companion who will help him." Now in the Hebrew 'a companion who will help him' is actually ezer kenegdo. (the following quote is from pg. 31) " The word ezer is used only 20 other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately." Here are some of the references they give: Deuteronomy 33:26, 29; Psalm 121:1-2; Psalm 20:1-2; Psalm 33:20; Psalm 115:9-11. They offer the suggestion that a better translation of the word would be 'lifesaver' (and kenegdo means alongside or counterpart.)

Wow, when God created women, when he created me, he created us in his image, to be lifesavers... we are crucial, we matter, and we are...well, significant....NOT because of what we do, but because of WHO we are. Gosh, doesn't that just take a weight off? It isn't what we accomplish, how much money we make (or don't make), or what the world thinks of our 'jobs'....it's the fact that God created us for a purpose, we were created with a significant role.

Back in the day of Adam and Eve, there were no glass ceilings, corporate ladders to climb, or Martha Stewart's to live up to. But Eve was created with significance, with a role that only she could fill.... Isn't that refreshing???

Matthew 18:5 "And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me."

I've never thought of this in the context of motherhood before... but all these little things I do on a daily basis, over and over and over for my children, I am doing for Christ.

So, I'm just going to chew on all this for a while... and pray that it sinks in and I will be changed by it!