Is this heaven's work?

I'am tired.  My back hurts, neck aches, and I want to get back in bed, but I can't.  There's too much that needs to be tackled in the house today. I've been staying up late into the early mornings.  Not for writing, though, sometimes I try and use my time wisely and concentrate on that task.  No, I'm up late now, mostly waiting for my husband.  Remember he and a friend just opened the restaurant...eatery?

  Being up late like this with house quiet and no one to talk to causes a mind to travel-think.  And I began to travel, think about what I am doing with myself...my life's work.

Cleaning, cooking, refereeing, chauffeuring, encouraging, respecting, loving... all my responsibilities to my family.  This is my high calling service to God. It is my first responsibility—even before writing.   It is: heaven's work.  And I'm proud to be one called to this service.  Being a stay-at-home mother and wife who home schools is no easy task.  Being a woman who stays home period is not work for the faint-of-heart...or for someone who constantly needs accolades "praise" for work well done.  Most of the time a mother who stays home work isn't noticed until she "doesn't" do it. 

This work of scrubbing toilets, pots & pans, cooking, doing laundry, teaching  children, writing, and ... is a ministry.  It's a ministry that we women can do wholeheartedly—making it become our work for heaven...God's work.  What makes the difference of it being heavens work or not being heaven's work is the position of our heart.  The hearts attitude.

We must remember that in order for us to have a heart attitude of "yes" toward God, we must allow ourselves to stay pliable and allow Him to mold us as He sees fit for His work and His service.  Regardless of the pain that is caused to our self-esteem, and other areas of our life.  We must remember that the turning of the ugly into beautiful means we must let the Potter mold us.  Shape us.  We must go low in order to get high.

Today focus on one of your greatest gifts from God's hand: the servanthood to your family.  That's our most precious of gifts.  It's a gift that teaches us to give of ourselves...to get low like Jesus.  Being a woman who stays home is the humbling work.  The work where you put others before yourself knowing there's a great possibility that you may never get recognized for doing so.  Not on this side of heaven anyway.  

Sometimes stress and energy will seem easier to grasp and hold on to than to muster up the strength to continue in our high calling, but He has already given us what we need to continue in this service.

You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are.  You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies—thought that never occurs to you.  Nothing happens to you except by the will of God and yet {God's} beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is. ~ Caussade { taken from Ann Voskamps "One thousand gifts: a dare to live fully right where you are."

The gifts #'s 106-125

~ bending of the knee every hour
~ spring days
~ listening to the water fill in the tub
~ the turning of the will
~ aroma of bake chicken
~ writing
~ awakening
~ payday candy bars
~ filling of accomplishment after cleaning
~ taking kids shopping for clothes
~ email from blog readers
~ The Treasury of American Poetry
~ jumping jacks, push-up for the body
~ planting lemon seeds
~ admiring rose bush that was planted by older daughter years ago
~ seeing the fruit of my womb blossom. 
~ sons taller than their Mama
~ listening on others conversation @ Starbucks...man telling his blind date he had "to go home and do laundry."
~ relaxation
~ the settling down of nature come dusk

"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.  Then the righteous will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?  The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'" ~ Matthew 25: 34-40




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