Big Stuff or Little People

The children had a broody hen that hatched one solitary chick out of the pile of eggs she sat on.

But does she ever mother that one little chick!

"Mothering a mess of kids is as important as preaching to a stadium for a month of Sundays," wrote Ann Voskamp, another mother, on her blog.  "The size of your ministry isn’t proof of the success of your ministry.

The very Son of God had a ministry to 12. And even one of them abandoned Him. Forget the numbers in your work. Focus on the net value of  your work."

So when I come home from New Guinea where I had the joy of teaching Sunday School to 30 and 60 and about 150 children at a time,

and where the missionary added up the numbers and figured that our crew had ministered to hundreds of people...

and Rosa tells me how much the simple things I said meant to the ladies and to her personally,

and how everywhere we went she said we brought a "bundle of joy--"

 when I come home from there,

it's just the kids and me.

It doesn't feel like I'm doing anything significant.
It doesn't feel like I'm making much of a difference for anyone or anything.

I would have sacrificed a lot to go back to New Guinea--and be a missionary.

I absolutely love being a missionary.

It's what I was called to be.

But there are seasons in life. 

And right now, like it or not, mothering comes first.

Then I read:

"Your most meaningful work in the Kingdom of God may not be the big things that you do — but the one little person you love."

And I am so glad I have my littlest daughter helping me paint the chair,

even though I could do it easier and faster myself.

And I let the boys set a tent up in the front yard,

and play a toddler game with my littlest daughter when she is feeling sad about something.

And I feel the spurt of energy that comes from an anointed encouragement from another mom who wants to do great things for God (and does them) but keeps her family first.

So little by little I get back into the groove,

and gain courage as this mother quotes from another author:

"I bend over each strawberry plant, press the delicate white petals between thumb and index finger —and then just pluck it off," she writes. "So there’ll be no strawberries this year."

[No mission accomplishments, no Sunday School teaching to dozens of children, no orphans helped.]

"It’s what you have to do," the author goes on. “Pick off all first blooms to ensure subsequent harvests are more plentiful.”

If you ever intend for the strawberries to produce heavily throughout the season, you have to choose to sacrifice the first harvest, so that all the growth and energy could be more efficiently invested into producing later crops."

 Wow!

So I say no to going back to New Guinea to be a missionary--and say yes to finishing raising my children. 

"Cut out that which seems good to invest in the best.

It is the law of life: Early sacrifice for later bounty.

I stand over the schedule and there’s ...this saying no... trimming back, letting go.

It can be hard to prune good things that are blooming. It can be hard to remember why you are pruning.

Because there’s a counter-intuitiveness to it, this plucking off certain life activities that will yield good fruit. Some might even think it foolish to pare back, when the bloom and gifting apparent; a good harvest inevitable.

Yet it’s the pruning of seemingly good leaves that can grow a better life. 

To allow later seasons to yield the longed-for abundant crop.

It takes courage to crop a life back — but it’s exactly the way to have the best crop of all.

What seems like hard work that’s taking an eternity today — is exactly what may make the most difference in eternity.

"Invitations aren’t obligations. Invitations are options... Every yes automatically says no somewhere else."

******

"A crop is made by all the seasons and the only way to have it all — is not all at the same time… but letting one season bring its yield into the next.

This is how to have no fear — each season makes a full year.

What can seem like a plucking of dreams — may be the wisest of investments.  In the later harvest. The sweetest one."

*****

from

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2016/07/how-to-face-the-challenge-facing-all-women-how-to-support-women-to-be-all-theyre-called-to-be/?utm_source=email+marketing+Mailigen&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter&utm_medium=email