A servant's heart

As a stay-home mom, I don't have a lot of personal agenda. My days are driven by the needs of my family: meals on the table, rides to school ETC, scheduling appointments, doing laundry, teaching school. I am blessed to have a lot of time with friends, but there is a different quality to this homemaker thing that didn't plague me when I worked outside the home.

In my job, I had certain tasks that were completed at certain times (usually with some amount of praise or satisfaction). I dressed up. I was serving God. I was compensated with a paycheck twice each month, sometimes a bonus. Now my tasks are like shoveling snow in a snowstorm. My family is very gracious to praise me, but you rarely move on from anything. This task is like the last task and similar to the next task and serves the same people. I wear gym clothes, or jeans and t-shirts. Yes, I am serving God, but I have the title "homemaker," not "minister." I don't get paid for what I do, and consequently there is no time "on" or "off" the job. I can get to thinking I am "on" 24/7.

Here's the heart issue: sometimes I find myself feeling like a martyr. I must do the laundry! I must make this sandwich! I must find the coffe cup that someone didn't return to the kitchen so said person has their coffee this morning! I must change the trash! Woe is me, to muster so much.

It is tricky, because I indeed serve them all. My youngest once said to me, when I was trying to help her with something, "I don't need that, Mom. I know you spoil sissy, so you think you have to do that for me, but I don't need that." So much wisdom in such a small package.

I have to want to be here. It's like serving Jesus. He doesn't hand me a list of do's and don'ts and tell me to get cracking. He loves me, and as I chase after a relationship with Him, I do and don't do certain things. I am His willing servant. And while I meditate on the biblical concept of being Jesus' slave, I have to shy away from the connotations of that word when it comes to my family.

The Law is quite interesting when it discusses slavery; I may blog on that soon. Exodus 21:5-6 says, “But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' then his master must take him before the judges.He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life." I have submitted myself to Jesus. My ear has been pierced. How silly for me to now paint myself as a tragic figure.

When this mood comes on me, I must pull back and look at my heart. I must submit my heart to the Man I originally bound myself to. If He was worthy then of all I am, He is good and worthy now. Then, I can serve my family with a whole heart, and not as a victim.