Christ Glorified- Serving
“Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.”
1 Samuel 12:24
In the early days of motherhood, when my baby was only a few weeks old, I was reading a book gifted to me, Missional Motherhood, by Gloria Furman. It was something like divine timing, because as I was adjusting to a new monotonous routine consisting of changing diapers, nursing and putting a baby back to sleep, I read how doing those very monotonous duties for my son was at the same time investing in my eternity. With every dirty diaper I changed and onesie I washed, I was serving my son.As someone who thrives on fun changes and adventures, reading those words encouraged and motivated me on a new level. As the sleep deprivation had started wearing me down, the realization that the sacrifices I was making for my child were indeed a small way of sharing Jesus’ love with him made our monotonous routine become the highlight of my day and night.Therefore, serving is a huge way I spend my days as a stay at-home mom. Once I got adjusted to my motherly duties however, I felt that I was missing an important piece of myself; serving others. In the most humble way possible, volunteering and serving others has been something that I have loved to participate in from a very young age. I was a Girl Scout from the time I was four or five until I was sixteen. We invested a lot of time volunteering in our city, and I always looked forward to it. When I moved to Texas in high school, I had to leave my troop and unfortunately never joined a new one, but through the many extracurricular clubs I was in, I continued getting to volunteer my time. The trend continued into my college years, but it was mainly to satisfy the mandatory volunteering requirement of the honors program I was in.I realize now that while I truly did enjoy serving others when I was younger, some of it was accompanied with grumbling and checking my watch to see how much time I had before I could go home (mainly when I volunteered at the library, which is by far my least favorite place to be ever). While that was a great thing for me to do, it never bought me satisfaction. Since I’ve become a Christian however, serving others has bought on a whole different meaning. I used to struggle to understand why Christians would uproot themselves to live in third world country for a week or years of their lives - with a smile on their face at that. I only wished I could feel what they were feeling to understand the life-giving decisions they were making.Once I started following Jesus it all clicked for me. Any sacrifice I would make in my life to serve others would be nothing compared to what Jesus did for me. Any time I could spend sharing the good news of the gospel with others would be time well spent. Volunteering became less about priding myself about what I did for others, but instead seeking and praying about what more could I do for others, regardless of their physical, monetary or life circumstances.After you have a baby, serving others is not an easy task, obviously. Between the nap times, spontaneous sickness, well-timed blowouts and inconsistent attitudes, it can seem like in this season there is not a way to volunteer your time. However, there is, it really is possible. Sometimes, it is just on a smaller scale that what you may have been able to do pre-babies.Something I’ve found to be true is that it is much less overwhelming to choose one thing to do, and to do that one thing well. For myself, it is tempting to over schedule my time and stretch myself too thin for the sake of serving others or even just marking my own items off my to-do list. When I removed the expectation off of myself to be the master of all things task-related, service-related or whatever else, I was able to focus on the heart of my service and enjoy it at the same time. I was able to realize there was a piece of me that still wanted to say “Look at what I did,” versus asking “Christ, what can I do to serve you and your people?”So, the baby and I started off small. Our church will participate in meal training after the birth of new babies, so once I was well enough and had balanced being able to shop and cook for my own family, I signed up to bring meals to some families I was close to. The meals I cooked were made with joy, knowing how helpful it was to receive them myself, and feeling happy for my friends that they wold get to rest their tired bodies that evening and not have to worry about dinner.As my baby has gotten older, being able to join in on volunteering opportunities has gotten easier. I look for things that allow me to take him with me and keep him in a sling or put him down to play. Sometimes that looks like giving a friend a ride to work, sometimes that has looked like joining a small class to learn how to understand and befriend others from another culture and evangelize to them. That being said, I know our time may not always look like this, especially as our family grows. Thankfully, there is insurmountable grace! I don’t have to feel guilty for the ways I'm not able to serve others with our time. What God sees is my heart for why I do or don’t serve, whether it is to my own family or to others. When God is my focus, He makes a way for me to serve others if it’s His plan! It quickly cuts out my temptation to compare my schedule to others, or my busynes or lack of busyness. It is something I pray my son catches onto from a young age and continues to play out in his own life.