As the baby is finishing her breakfast bottle, you smell a dirty diaper. When you go to change it, you find that it has blown out the side, and you’re going to have to give her a bath right away, rather than waiting for night-time. There are too many dishes in the kitchen sink, to set the baby tub inside it, so you’re going to have to wash all of THEM before you can give a bath. Dishes are clean, baby is clean, but by this time, guess what? She’s HUNGRY AGAIN! SMILE! Have YOU had your breakfast yet? Nope! And you haven’t had your shower yet, either! Does this scenario sound familiar? Being a Mommy requires a lot of SELFLESSNESS!!
People will tell you that, “Nothing teaches patience like parenthood”, for a reason! God is our patient Heavenly Father, and He often uses children in our lives, to make us more like Him! In Luke 9:23, Jesus says, “ . . . If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” As mothers seeking to follow after Christ, we must selflessly DENY OURSELVES, every day! Is this an easy task, when we feel like our “Me Time” has just been taken away from us? No, indeed! How much easier it would be to get angry and say the wrong things! How much easier to just “lose it” and have an “emotional breakdown” in front of everybody! Romans 6:11 instructs us to, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Can we die to our sin, and do what is right, in and of ourselves? In Galatians 6:14, Paul says, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” We can only be “dead” to the world and to sin through Jesus Christ our Lord! If we hope to refrain from getting angry when our 3-year-old colors on the wall, then we are going to need the Lord’s help to do it! If we hope to be patient when the baby has spilled his food for the fourth time in a week, then we are going to need heavenly assistance! We cannot glory in ourselves! Romans 7:18-21 declares, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing . . . For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do . . . I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” Whenever we try to do anything right, on our own, we find that we miserably fail! Galatians 5:25 tells us that, “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Even when things are going all wrong, our reactions can be RIGHT reactions if the Holy Spirit is leading and directing our lives!
There are days when all you want to do is crawl back under the covers and pretend the dead leaves, the mold, the food-stained dishes, and the dirty diapers just don’t exist. There are mornings when you really, REALLY wish you didn’t have a pediatrician’s appointment to keep. It is for times like these that we have Galatians 6:9 - “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” What shall we reap? A happy, healthy home . . . Children who “arise up, and call” us “blessed” (Proverbs 31:28) . . . A contented husband . . . And a million other riches. How do we become the selfless wives and mothers that God wants us to be? Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” We give ourselves to God! We say, “Lord, I give my life to you! There are days when I’d much rather be someone else, with no husband and no children to care for, but You have CALLED ME to be a wife and a mother! That is Your perfect plan for me! Please help me to be a living sacrifice for You! Help me to daily do what YOU want me to do!” When those difficult days come, God is always there, helping to give us patience in the midst of our lessons in SELFLESSNESS!
