Content With My Role

I love living in Ohio. Our neighborhood is so great, very safe, and filled to the brim with families with small children. No one has fences and so the kids can just run and play with other kids and they have so much fun! Adam and my relationship has grown so much moving away from our families and having to depend on each other. We adore having our sweet little Annabelle and Adelyn so close together because they are the sweetest little playmates and it is so great that they entertain each other. Adam and I both have our dream jobs. I get to stay at home with our kids while he leads worship and works on media projects for the church. It is what we both have waited for our whole lives. On top of all of this, the ministry opportunities are endless here. I am able to minister and love on youth girls through some extremely difficult situations doing this in my home without neglecting my home or mother responsibilities. Adam gets to meet with people and visit people often spurring them on toward Christ. Life is good.

On the flip side, a shooting and a stabbing took place in our neighborhood not all that long ago that has made us feel as though our neighborhood is not as safe as we thought it was when we first moved here. The lack of fences causes me and Annabelle to be scared when all the dogs come out to play (because we are both scared of dogs.) Not having fences also makes playing outside a bit of a chore because I am chasing a 1 and 2 year old around the whole time. Moving so far away from family has been extremely difficult. My mom is 16 hours away which means she must fly to see us and this only happens a few times a year. The rest of our family is a 10 hour drive where are kids scream at least half of the time and we want to pull our hair out by the time we get there. Having the girls so close together has proved to be a bit more difficult than we thought especially since our youngest had so many issues the first year of her life and we had no help here from family and almost everyone we know has kids of their own. Being a stay at home mom is hard work with no breaks. Ministry opportunities are endless which means we have to constantly fight for our family and even Adam and I to have the time we need to honor God and "stay afloat." Life is hard.

I am reading the book "Calm My Anxious Heart" by Linda Dillow. My first post about it is HERE. She does this exercise in the first chapter and that is not the chapter that I am reading now but I just felt like it might be a good exercise for me to do and it has proven that it is. You see in her book, Linda talks about how there are always two ways to look at life. We can choose to focus on the positives or the negatives. I don't think it is hard to figure out which paragraph of mine is which. I do however think it is important to realize that every single last one of our lives can be written out somewhat similar to these paragraphs. Nothing in either paragraph is untrue; it is simply how you look at the situation.

I will be the first to admit. God has been strongly dealing with my heart about my role as a wife and mother of two little baby dolls. This is why I was a bit surprised and intrigued when of all weeks my "homework" for my bible study is to read the fourth chapter entitled "Content With My Role." This is D-NOW week at our church. Again, I have the choice to look at this situation in two ways: I can choose to be angry, frustrated, not supportive, resentful, bitter that I am staying home with my kids all weekend without my husband or I can choose to look at this time I get to spend being a prayer warrior for the weekend, loving on my sweet girls, and showing them by example how I support Adam and am appreciative of his ministry. God knows I want with all my heart to honor Him in how I look at this weekend. God also knows that there is no way that in and of myself I can be content. He knows that I need Him desperately.

I hope I am not being too honest here but I want to be transparent in saying that I am not one of those people who always looks at the good in things first. It usually takes me a while before I roll around to see the good side of things. Maybe this is good in that I know how much I need my Lord to work in my life and change me by the renewing of my mind.

Linda Dillow offers much insight to being content in our role whatever it may be. Here are some things from her book:

"Ironic isn't it? Single women looked at married women and wish for a husband. Married women look at their husbands and wish for different ones. Childless women long for children, and mothers long for the day that their kids will be in school."

"A wife will either minister to her husband or manipulate him to get her own way."-Dr Larry Crab

"We must make the choice to dwell on the positive aspects of our role in life. If we don't, we'll be discontent, always wanting something different from what we have been given."

"Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful." 1 Corinthians 4:2

"Our assigned role is our trust. In His love He has given each of us a gift. (Mine being a wife, mommy, minister's wife.) In His sovereignty, He has said it is in this role we can best glorify Him."