Regina 
Do enough laundry, wash enough dishes, do enough of the same things in rapid succession day after day after day, and you might begin to think that the work you have to do is insignificant, maybe all of this doesn’t amount to much at all. We lay our heads exhausted and spent on the pillow knowing that in just a couple of hours the first of the midnight cries will begin. We wonder how are we making disciples when we are just trying to make up our beds and put together our faces and get everyone to all the places. Putting kids on the bus, socks in the drawer and towels in the linen closet after all is not work that is ever applauded. We wake again to the same works of yesterday, and there’s nothing glamorous in this space where strep and stomach bugs abound. We can drown in it all we don’t tread carefully. The lover our souls will be the lifter of our heads in the midst of it all. We have too many times chosen joylessness. We waste the gift offered us. We have forgotten the delight of ordinary things. The blessing hidden away in doing the same thing again with excellence, with careful attention to all that we could do with excellence, to the piles of things we could give thanks for. We overlook the sunrise for the first cup of coffee; perhaps we don’t understand what might wake us fully, because we fool about with earthly things just a little too much. We neglect to thank the Lord for the first waking breath, another day to live in minutes and hours, in breakfast, in midday, in evening meals, to know our husband and encourage him deep.
We miss the first laugh of our children, because we want quiet, just a bit of calm, just sometimes, yet we live void of the only quiet that lasts, quietness of the heart something forged by heavenly hands rather than circumstances.
We strain and struggle to know the future, to control all the things that spin in our universe, we forget in the worry, in the pressure, in the anxiety there is our God who holds everything together by the Word of His power. He holds things with a Word. He holds us the very same way. The sustaining Words of Scripture aren’t simply to be read. They are to be lived and believed. We are after the wrong things. Chase after God, and you will find Him. Chase after anything else, and it is in every sense a grasping at the wind. Reputation and wealth, if we ever have them, we should know that they are passing things. They must never be lived for. They are not God. There’s something more here. There’s something that brings meaning to every load of laundry, every repeat scramble of the eggs… When we worship our good Father in all of these things, we come to find that all of these things sing the worth of our Creator, our Savior, our Best Friend, our Lord Jesus Christ.
There aren’t trophies of praise for breaking up sibling squabbles. In the solitude of motherhood you can often feel like all of the days are adding up and totaling out to zero, but that entire train of thought just isn’t remotely true, because… those clothes you wash cover up precious bodies, little image bearers. The dishes you fill up with hot food go into the bellies of your people and if you’re mindful, to the poor. These things that seem to amount to nothing are the very things God uses to make us holy and humble. Turns out our handful of nothing is everything in the hands of God, and we do not need to worried or discouraged dear sister, because measureless is the value God finds in you. These simple thoughts pour encouragement to my own desert worn heart. Life is impossibly good. Yet we live in dry lands where difficulty comes with relentless determination. The peace here is that the Lord determines our path. We have never discovered a place His rich grace does not run straight through, waterfalls of living water. Wherever these musings find you, whatever your day has held… there’s no grip more determined than the hand of God. He has you, for all your failings, fears, floundering…. for all the faith, hope, perseverance…. it has always been and it will always be that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. See things the way the really are. If you believe in that glorious death and resurrection, your life in Him and His life in you, you can take both the laundry and that cold cup of coffee in hand knowing that it is His hand that has offered any such kindness to you and give thanks. There is a way to answer when anxiety comes to call and it is with thanksgiving. The tiniest measure of faith is like an ocean over fear. Take heart, dear one, and take up your courage.
