It was a particularly crazy time in our ministry lives (what time isn’t?!) when my husband and I were trying to juggle life with one vehicle, two daughters, and many different jobs and ministries for both of us. It was a discussion, not an argument; but my husband’s comment in the midst of it irked me. Now…sometimes I am irked because my husband is in the wrong. Well, this time what he said hurt because it was the truth, but I wasn’t quite ready to hear it. He reminded me gently that the children are my “primary responsibility.”
We always agreed that when we began our family that I would stay home to care for our children. All through my growing up years I dreamed of being married and having a family. And just like my mom was home every day after we came home from school, I knew I wanted to be there in the same way for my children someday.
At the time of this conversation I was staying at home with our young daughters, but my husband’s comment during that discussion got underneath my usually pretty tough skin. Why?…because sometimes the truth hurts, and we need to hear it to get on track again.
By God’s grace I have sought to make raising our two daughters my primary ministry after the priority of supporting my husband in his pastoral work and life. But there have been many times I have struggled to be faithful in this area of life and ministry. As the children change, how we minister to them changes, but one thing that I’ve learned doesn’t change is that they need a mother who doesn’t let selfish pursuits derail her from loving her husband and children.
Titus challenges the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children (see Titus 2:4). These are to be priorities for the woman who wants to honor Christ, and it’s only when we follow those commands that we will be at rest in fulfilling His will for us as wives and mothers.
So…how do we do that? How do we show faithfulness in loving our children so that they don’t resent us for being in ministry and turn their backs on the One we so long to serve well?
I don’t have all the answers, but I’d like to share a few stories about being faithful in the different stages of motherhood and childrearing I’ve been through so far.
Naturally, at the beginning stages of motherhood the demands of faithfulness are higher as that colicky infant screams – Iiterally! – for everything she needs from you. When my daughters were babies and beyond they were horrible with sleeping and teething to the point that I really couldn’t serve in the areas of the church I had been before they were born. I needed to rest, to cut out extra service that would only wear me out even more.
Toddlers are always kindly called “busy”, but we know what that really means! Discipline is paramount as we train our children to learn that they must submit to our authority. I will never forget the day my toddler stood with her fists on both hips, shook her head and said “You are not the boss of me!”
Oh, yes; to be faithful at this stage you need to be consistent in discipline but also in giving them that intentional time where you engage with them. One day when my daughter asked to play Barbie dolls with her yet again I heard the silent scream in my head: “I can’t do this again! I have to do something to challenge my brain. I have a college degree; I didn’t train for this!”
Then the quieter voice of God’s Spirit whispered after the storm in my flesh to remember that she is only young once and that there would be time for other career-related and intellectual pursuits in time.
By the time my girls were old enough to run around the church after the service, I began to feel that I would have some “freedom” for more ministry and adult time. Now I had to make sure they either weren’t running into our elderly folk or misbehaving with the other church kids. Though the qualification to manage their households is for elders, we as wives are a part of that ministry, and if I couldn’t teach my children in the ways of the Lord then I couldn’t expect to teach the people in our congregation how to follow Him.
Throughout these years of raising my school age children there have been times when I have had to say “no” to being involved in various ministries or going to certain events even when the pressure was high to attend as the pastor’s wife because I knew that my girls needed me at home or that they simply needed to not be so busy.
Now that I am working full-time outside the home, my ministry to my 14 and nearly 10-year-old daughters looks different. I have struggled to feel that I am prioritizing them at times, but God has given me ways to keep them the primary ministry by the fact that I work in a school so that I’m basically working when they are in school and home when they are home during holidays. I maintain contact with them by phone and text when possible so that they know they are still my priority.
And when it comes to the end of the school day, and I have been listening to and dealing with other children all day I draw on God’s strength to listen again to them–even late at night when they are finally ready to talk about their days. I even schedule special time every week with one of my daughters to whom this quality time is so important by either going shopping or getting a treat out.
Though we are just on the cusp of the teenage years, and I know how that I make my children priority when they are adults will change again, keeping them as priority doesn’t change.
For Mother’s Day last year my mom gave me a plaque. The quote on it from C.S. Lewis sums up this up well: “Children are not distractions from more important work; they are the most important work.”
I have that displayed in my living room, and it is a good Spirit-led reminder for me when my flesh rears its ugly head and I want to be irked about my “primary responsibility”. A number of years have gone by now, and when I hear that phrase now instead of feeling irked, I am filled with joy and thankfulness as I see my daughters growing hearts for Him.
Truly, children are “the most important work”; be faithful to them, sisters!
“Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. (Psalm 127:3)
