The Welcome Home

I’m not sure which topic of conversation or question generates more questions than laundry or meals for families. I’m thinking that both are either areas of great frustration or testing or are grounds for great victory or great defeat. As for meal times, women generally ask me questions that are more logistical or are more along the lines of creativity and time-saving methods (I’ll share about some of these tomorrow). Women are generally more able to get that area of homemaking “mastered” or taken care of than they are regarding the dilemma of… the laundry.

Laundry. There’s always more laundry.

You know… I’m pretty sure the LORD has this necessary part of living for more reasons than just the clothing that meets the eye -for laundry sort of represents other things in our lives… attitudes, actions, words, and decisions we might make all sort of pile up and either need to be sorted out, cleaned up, washed in the pure water of the Word… and on and on.

I think child training is sometimes sort of like laundry. When children are trained daily, dirty habits don’t pile up, smelly attitudes don’t overflow the hamper of the mind, but (!) when the training or washing isn’t tended regularly, then the mountain of stained consciences or musty manners seems to steadily grow. Laundry’s taught me lots of lessons through the years, that’s for sure. Lessons of success and lessons of failure – lessons that have firmly cemented in my thoughts right ways of handling situations and the disastrous consequences of not handling them either quickly or properly.
It’s at the dryer that I’ve had some of the most meaningful talks with the LORD. When I fold clothes, I think of and pray for the owner of the pieces of clothing I am folding. When I turn socks or pant legs or sleeves, I pray for them to turn from ways not pleasing the LORD. When I’m shaking out and then folding some other type of garment, I pray for old habits to be shaken off, to be covered by the grace and mercy of the LORD. I pray for my husband, for the hard work he does that produces some stains on work clothes, the hard work he does that allows for the purchase of all the different sorts of clothing, sheets, blankets and towels. And I have much for which to be thankful – it’s sobering to me to consider it all. These are just a few of the types of things I talk to the LORD about when I’m standing at the dryer.

Now, I don’t stay there long, for it is also my goal to be very speedy about that job so that it’s never a mountain of worries to me. One thing I learned a long time ago was that laundry is to be done then and there and to never take piles of laundry anywhere else in our house if at all possible —and— to *never* sit somewhere and fold laundry (especially the no, not ever(!): bed or sofa!). Laundry’s not a hobby or a pastime – nope, it’s a job and it’s a job to get done quickly! I timed loads for a while so that I would know how much time a load actually takes to wash or to dry or to fold and I timed the folding of laundry while sitting on the sofa or bed and the time spent was at least doubled, certainly! I think another key is having everyone take a part… one person daily responsible to bring the laundry to the laundry area/room. Another person or several persons to put it away after each load or a couple of loads. But surely, not piles left unattended. Accountability… it’s about as key here as in any other task of life. I simply ask the child(ren) if the load was put away in the right places… and then I do check… usually very briefly.
So, motherhood definitely means laundry – and lot’s of it! But the laundry doesn’t have to be drudgery or a noose about the neck. I think Kim over at Large Family Logistics says 4 by four – maybe that’s on laundry day. And I think that’s some pretty good advice. For me, laundry schedules have sort of changed an evolved over the years and certainly when we’ve had a baby in the house. Anyway, I think if a mama gets a load going before breakfast and another after the dishes and then another before lunch and (if need be) another before or after naptime, she’ll be doing really well. For a large family, three or four loads a day is very normal and after a while, laundry is really “second nature” and can be overcome with little thought and no real arduous effort. I think the key is keeping it all always done and enlisting the children’s help to put stacks away after each load. Besides, keeping attitudes and manners clean, laundry (and all other chores) is a great trainer of character. If a child doesn’t learn to work and to work well, he/she will not be a disciplined or obedient child in other areas, either.

So, laundry is motherhood’s friend. It says and does so much about and for her.

Only in recent years have WMD’s or the term WMD’s become a commonly known or commonly used term.  I think about the devastation of weapons of mass destruction and as I often do, I think of how ‘weapons of mass destruction’ might correlate to the home or motherhood.  It’s a term of war or arsenal of the enemy.

So, I was walking through the store and I heard a tired, exasperated and foolish mother unloading her WMD’s on her children.  WMD’s are what I’ve come to think of in recent years when I hear a mother’s angry outburst or some tirade against her children.  She warns them they’re not getting anything.  She threatens to take them out to the car.  She tells them they’re naughty little brats.  She tells them she’s tired of them making noise.  She tells them she’s going to leave them at the store.  She tells them they’re bad.

WMD’s.  Mama’s Words of Mass Destruction.

Every mama’s got ‘em: words of mass destruction.  Every mama’s used ‘em at one time or another or… sadly, many times.  Furious anger against the little one who spills yet another glass of milk.  Rage over another mess.   Another ranting and raving over the messy room, the unfinished chore or incomplete schoolwork.  We’ve all done it at one time or another –or many times.  WMDs.  And they are massively destructive.  O, they don’t seem like it at the time.  Noooo.  They seem righteous at the time.  After all, we’re telling them the truth –someone’s got to!  And we’re justified!  They’ve broken the rules, caused a mess, disobeyed!  They deserve what’s coming to them!  Really?  Do they really deserve our WMDs?   Are WMD’s really the answer?

O, in a saner moment we’d say, surely not.  We’d say, in a rational moment, that what they need are sweet, understanding words – they don’t need WMD’s.  Nobody needs/deserves WMD’s.  WMD’s really don’t help anyone –in fact, just the opposite.  WMD’s truly are words of mass destruction.

As mama’s, we have an arsenal of weapons at our disposal.  We have bitter words, grievous words, biting words, sarcastic words, caustic words, destructive and humiliating words.  We can, at once, reduce a child to tears or worse, to great shame.  Words.  Simple words.  Ugly words that we would never dream of saying aloud in the presence of our acquaintances but freely fling at the precious gifts the LORD has entrusted into our care and training.   

It’s a lie… that saying: sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  That’s a lie.  We know that some of our deepest personal wounds are word wounds.  Wounds that perhaps were sustained decades ago are instantly painful at the remembrance of words we once heard.

So, the mother walked through the store.  Occasionally, the child would say an inappropriate word or beg once again for some forbidden item.  And once again, the tirade would be repeated… the WMD’s once again flung at the child.  And the cycle of mixed shame and anger repeated once again.  This would likely be done many times over throughout that, and every day as that mama didn’t grasp the magnitude, significance or consequence of her words.  Little did she know that she was really launching an attack with her cache of WMD’s.

WMD’s don’t have to be that overt to cause damage.  Little sarcasms and snide remarks can do as much or more damage.  Sarcasm and coarse talk is quite the common and acceptable form of communication these days.  I’ll write on that shortly.

But for now… I want to contrast the WMD’s… Mama’s Words of Mass Destruction with sweet words.   Sweet words are those words a mama says that are soothing… calming… reassuring… encouraging… affirming.  They’re quite the opposite of the WMD’s.  And a mama has to work hard at stocking and storing another sort of WMD … Words that Minister Delight.  And we do have a choice.  We can be like the impatient, ignorant, loud and foolish mothers who bark and bite at their children or we can be sweet, understanding and loving mothers who minister sweet words to our children… words that build them up; not words that tear them down and foster anger.  We can strive to be women who don’t stoop to the lesser ways of parenting but who strive for the higher, better, lovely manner of mothering children: mothers who convey they are glad they’re where they’re at and glad they’re with who they’re with and glad they’re doing what they’re doing.

Decide today…. No more WMD’s…  Be done with lesser things.  Choose to work at lavishing Words that Minister Delight.  And may the LORD bless us all as we seek to serve and honour Him in all that we do.

It was with shear astonishment that I held my first child – our first child – twenty-eight years ago, and it was with awe and humble amazement that I saw that God had, indeed, given us a precious gift. I saw my Lord and Saviour in a whole new way. It wasn’t just that He had forgiven me of my sins, redeemed my soul and had given me the free gift of salvation and eternal life, never-to-be-separated from God through faith by His atoning death and resurrection, and it wasn’t just that He had blessed my womb, but also that He had thought on me, that He had visited me and had allowed this very imperfect vessel to be used for His glory and His purposes: He had created me to be a mother — a joyful mother of children (psalms 113).

He, in His wisdom and mercy, created me to mother, tend to, train up and be an example to children He would create in my womb. That fact, eleven times over, is completely breathtaking to me. And so, knowing that, I have a very serious charge to keep; I am, in the beginning: the Hands and Feet of Jesus to my children.

I mull that thought over and over. I have failed over and over to keep that charge. I have failed over and over to be what He’s both designed, called and equipped me to be. I’ve closed the door, I’ve hidden in my bathroom, I’ve become absorbed by the gotta do this and gotta do that’s of each day.

I’ve often attempted to do in the flesh what can only be done in and through and by the Spirit of the LORD. I’ve wasted time, wasted energy, wasted talents, wasted resources and wasted His Words… on trivial pursuits — often forgetting I had been given a charge to keep. I had heard the Word and often counted it as words that were simply for knowledge about God and accumulation of knowledge about His Word. Early on, I knew a small bit of the Word and assumed I knew enough to coast on through… but that knowledge was not enough to carry me through (and certainly not to coast on through) for the walk of a Christian mother is not the walk of a proud actress, one who learns some lines and play a part. There’s no sliding into heaven on one’s backside. The walk of a Christian mother is not a coasting, slide — it is, in fact, often a walk on the knees.

So if a mother is to her children, the Hands and Feet of Jesus, what does that look like? How does that work? What do they see? It’s not always so much that I give our children Truth, but that I give them Truth in a package of grace and mercy. O, they need the Truth; for their faith will come by hearing and that by the Word of God (Romans 10.17). The longer I live, the more I see that being the Hands and Feet of Jesus to them is a life of sacrificial mercy; for that’s what true love is: sacrificial mercy. I sacrifice for them – I do for them both what they cannot do for themselves, but what I would want to be done for me as one helpless under the care of another. I think of them as His children – His gifts – His special creation and I look to Him to guide my steps (being His Hands and Feet to them) so that I will walk in the way He would have me to walk so that they will be instructed in the way they should go.

I think of it like this when I pray:
Lord, please help ME instruct them in the way they should go.
Lord, please help me INSTRUCT them in the way they should go.
Lord, please help me instruct THEM in the way they should go.
Lord, please help me instruct them IN the way they should go.
Lord, please help me instruct them in THE way they should go.
Lord, please help me instruct them in the WAY they should go.
Lord, please help me instruct them in the way THEY should go.
Lord, please help me instruct them in the way they SHOULD go.
Lord, please help me instruct them in the way they should GO.

And they will go. Believe me, they will go. In what way will they go? It is sobering and humbling to consider that we have MUCH to do with the WAY they will GO. Will they have been nurtured up in the fear and admonition of the LORD and will I have been sacrificially the Hands and Feet of Jesus to them? Will I wash them and bathe them in prayer? Will I walk and talk with them along the way as I have been instructed to do? (Deuteronomy 6.7) Will I have been mercifully the Hands and Feet of Him to them as I guide them and correct them? Will I have been, in WORD and DEED, in Truth: the Hands and Feet of Jesus by my words and service to them? Will I have been the Hands and Feet of Jesus when I hand them over to Him and say, Not my will but thine be done, Lord?

O, God my merciful Father, will You be my hands and feet as I walk with You and hold Uour children in my life and will You be my words, my deeds, my hope and my strength—for I know I cannot, nor do I wish to, do this job on my own. O, Lord, please use this vessel, please strengthen my frame and fill me that they will only see You in me.