In Christ this sinful mother has been raised to new life.
In this new life I receive Faith. A faith that sees through this dim mirror of temporal life and into the eternal life to come. In this temporal life I only see dying, struggle and futility. I am tempted to believe that Sin and death have the final say.
Here in my weakness I am easily overwhelmed and lead to despair. I doubt God’s goodness and find I often feel crushed under His gifts instead of blessed.
But in hope I know what is to come. I confess my sin. I am forgiven and I pray for strength.
“So, you make the breakfast and wipe the bums and wash the laundry. You do those things without happiness, as though carrying a cross, and that’s OK. Crosses are heavy and lonely, but still we carry them for in the end nothing can take away the joy that motivates us to keep on.
People are expensive. Life requires blood. But God has done it all already, and it’s going to be good in the end.” My Friend Dawn
Motherhood is not an easy calling. It is painful and I fail all the time but because I have to and by the Grace of God I put one foot in front of the other and I persevere. It’s keeping “the end” in mind that keeps me going when all I want to do is quit.
When I just want to throw in the dish towel for an easier life. A life that feels more like living than dying.
Through motherhood God is killing my flesh so that He can save me. I die so that I can live.
I’ve struggled many times with this verse:
“Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing — if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”
I love what Luther says here. It’s one good way to sum up what this verse is saying:
“Prayer and the mentioning of trouble are sacrifices most pleasing to God. God desires it, and it is his will that you should pour out your trouble before him, and not let it lie upon yourself.
God wills that you should be too weak to bear and overcome such trouble, in order that you may learn to find strength in him and that he may be praised through his strength in you.
This is how Christians are made!” Martin Luther
Childbearing is such a trouble that the Christian woman can do nothing but call upon God for strength. In her constantly “calling” on God she is saved.
The Christian mother bears and rears children in faith, love, holiness, self-control and hope. We trust that though through Eve we were cursed with pain and sorrow in childbearing, Christ became cursed for our sake and He promises to deliver all womankind. In faith and in hope we look to that final and glorious deliverance as we muddle through our days.
In the mirror of motherhood God shows me my sin so it can be confessed, forgiven and turned from. I don’t always get it right. I don’t always see or want to see that this is His way, but He is patient. May He preserve me in Faith, Love and Holiness with Self-Control.
May He help me to discipline my flesh and to count it all joy, or at least try to. I don’t have to be happy about it, but do thank God that His ways are not our own.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
May He help me to confess to Him, rest in Him and wait on Him knowing that He is my strength and my help.
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Amen.
Prayers for you and all mothers this day.