My second chance for Mother's Day

I'm sitting in a corner at our local coffee shop celebrating my Mother's Day.  It's really 5 days away, but our day Sunday will be a day we'll be serving.  So I asked Jon for only one thing this Mother's Day.  I wanted a day to myself.  A day away from the responsibilities of taking care of someone else other than me.  I just wanted to be ME.  I felt justified in that request.  I felt I needed it.  But I'm sitting here, after a day of shopping at stores without having to worry about a toddler melt down or a public restroom potty break, feeling unsatisfied.  And I know why.

One of the stops on my adventure today was a Christian Bookstore because I had a gift card and I heard of a book I really wanted to read, You and Me Forever by Francis & Lisa Chan (visit youandmeforever.org for more).  I grabbed the book and started reading the back:  "100% of the net proceeds from this book will support various ministries including those that help provide shelter and rehabilitation for thousands of children and exploited women around the world."

There are women and children around the world exploited and I'm sitting here sipping a $4.50 cent blended coffee because I believed I deserved a break.

Please listen here because this point is vital.  This isn't about the break.  It's about my deserving heart for the break.   I don't believe in guilting.  I don't believe God guilts.  I don't believe in shaming.  But I believe in the conviction of the Holy Spirit that sets a heart a part from the ways of this world for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  And this was why I was unsatisfied.

I had been setting comfortable in a "me" focused world.  In fact, I even encouraged it.  Just hours before I sat writing this post, I was sitting with my phone documenting my "ME" day.  It feels good.  And it is good.  But I don't deserve it.  I don't have a right to ME.  In fact, I have a right to death, both death in my sin and death in my physical life.  As one who so deeply desires to follow Jesus to the heart of what He came to live, die, and resurrect for, I get it backwards so many times- I focus on me and what I am due, like a mother's day where I don't have to play mom, instead of focussing on Jesus who came to rescue and save moms around the world broken physically and spiritually because of the evil seeking to destroy them.  And I praise Jesus that mom was me!  But my time of being rescued is finished.  He has called me from my sin and into a life that says Go.  Disciple.  Serve.  Love the unlovable.  Care for the orphans and widows.  Heal the sick.  Profess my name.  Live fully in me.

So although I am so thankful my husband gave me time- to get away, to do whatever I wanted or needed to do- my reasonings missed the joy of what fully could have been enjoyed.  Thankfully my day isn't over yet.  Because I get this chance, to sit undistracted and write you, because I so want you to know if you're a mom already called into grace, you are now called into a roll bigger than anything you have ever known.  The call of motherhood is great.  It is a call that faces discipleship face to face.  Our call to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20) has been given to us in our homes.  Our children are the disciples we get to raise up.  And even more, we have the call to walk alongside other mothers Jesus is after.  The mothers everywhere, in our neighborhoods and in our world, to pray for, to fight for, to defend, and to speak the WORD OF TRUTH for the Glory of God.  

This mother's day, I deserve nothing, but I have been given so much.  I've been given a second chance to face eternity and head into the straight and narrow, and show my little disciples that the Kingdom of God is the greatest investment.  I've been given a chance to get a glimpse of God, apart from the noise, and his heart for mothers everywhere- and a chance to do something about it.