Sometimes as mothers we experience the brokenness of the world in very unique ways. God calls us to many things with our children that do not get much in return. We spend evenings catching up on house cleaning, only to have children wake up and drag their toys and paper through the house. We change our babies diaper and it’s dirty again the second we get the last strap on. Toddlers fight us and refuse to give us rest. We care for the ones who get the stomach flu, and once they are healthy, we start throwing up. We bathe them regularly when we haven’t had a decent shower in days. We search for their shirts and pants while we still feel stuck in our pajamas and yesterday’s makeup.
The calling comes with tools that are also affected by the fall; ovens that burn our pizzas, refrigerators that give out the day after grocery day, showers that run out of hot water, sinks that leak and spill out into the kitchen, yesterday’s dinner that hardens and sticks to the plates, vacuums that putter out when our floor is filthy. We could go on forever couldn’t we? In all this work that’s mixed with difficulties, maybe you’ve said similar to what I’ve said before: I just feel like half of a person.
Now there’s nothing wrong with a little humor to take the edge off of motherhood right? We compare ourselves to zombies, the schizophrenic Gollum from the Lord of the Rings, the wrinkly old witch from Snow White, it can be funny. Motherhood is funny sometimes. But when it comes to the thought of fullness, there’s a hidden lie behind the feeling of being half of a person. It’s a humorous line, but it’s one that the Enemy pockets for later use. It’s fuel he can use when we’re at our lowest. Well, am I even whole? He strokes us to think. And we spiral from this point as we sit there, with our children running around the living room. Where do we run to?
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
Colossians 2:9-10
Dear Mothers, in Christ we are whole. We have been brought to fullness. We must remind ourselves of this truth. When our kids aren’t responding to us, and we’ve lost the keys for the 36th time this week and we’re late again, we are whole. When we have started our drive to the store and we realize our shirt is inside out and the baby is screaming in the back seat, we are whole. When we have struggled with anger all day and we stand in the kitchen at 6pm clueless of what to make for dinner, we are whole.
Jesus does not bring you to fullness in him only to temporarily make you feel like half a person while you’re in the trenches of motherhood. No, his fullness is for your mothering too. We are his, we are alive in him. We are experiencing the fullness of Christ even in our child’s tenth tantrum of the day. We are a person with a soul that is healed and made whole, even when we’ve gotten all the cereal bowls ready and there’s no milk left, or coffee, and we still need a shower.
Raise your mugs of lukewarm coffee with me and embrace the fullness of Christ in whatever trenches we walk through with Him today.
Raised From Dust 