Have you ever answered the question ‘what do you do?’ with ‘I’m just a mom.’ I often say ‘I’m a writer,’ or ‘I do websites’ or something similar. I’ve rarely answered it with ‘I’m a mom.’
I’m sure most people don’t. Whether you work outside the home or you are a stay-at-home-mom, you are working. Lisa Jo Baker, author and speaker, was a featured speaker at MOMcon. (Yes, I’m still writing about it.) She spoke on “the Courage to be Significant.”
This is an area where I struggle. I want to live in the background. I want to be behind the camera not in front of it. I want to type the words, not say that out loud. I want to blend. And often I feel like that makes me insignificant—a tiny ant in a colony of much stronger ants.
However, Lisa Jo said several things that struck me.
- “There is no part of your life that Jesus doesn’t look deep into and say “that is mine.” – Um, hello! He made me this way. These talents, these treasures, these desires are HIS, not mine. If this is the way I feel comfortable than it’s just the way I was designed to live.
- There is nothing routine about your routine. –Every day is the same. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in the movie “Groundhog’s Day.” I was really starting to loathe the routine. Some days I still do. The kids need a routine because kids like consistency. I like consistency, but all moms know what I mean. Eggs for breakfast, fight to brush their teeth, remind them to take their backpack, drive, drive, clean, drive, dinner, clean up, homework, clean up, ugh. It’s exhausting just thinking about it. But if you think about your kids as your little birds and think about what they need from you and the task you have been given by God to raise and educate these little ones, it seems a lot less routine.
- Our significance is not depend on our kids or our titles.—No matter who we are or what we do, we are God’s.
Then she cited these Bible verses as inspiration.
- Philippians 4:13 – I can do all things through him who gives me strength.
- John 15:5 – “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
- John 15:16 – You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
- 1 Corinthians 3:16 – Don’t you know that you yourselves are in God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you?
- 2 Corinthians 5:!6 – So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
- Ephesians 2:6 – And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms with Christ Jesus.
- Ephesians 2:10- For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
- Ephesians 3:!2 – In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
- Proverbs 22:6 – Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.
So, yes, you are a mom.
Yes, it can be routine.
Yes, it can be very tough.
But this job—it comes from God. It comes with a high level of importance. We need to serve them as role models of Christian life. We need to prepare them to be do God’s work. We need to prepare them to raise the next generations of Christians.
So if you ask me, that’s a pretty important job. Far more important than any Earthly title.
It’s a calling and you have received it. Now live it. You are significant.