I am recycling this from a "note" I wrote in FB...because someone recently mentioned that they had not seen me blog lately...and I am lazy.

So here ya go!

I just read this article
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/motherhood-as-a-mission-field#.Tf9yBUxH_0w;facebook
posted by a friend of mind, and it made me think....

When I was raising my children...and even as recently as a couple of years ago... my mother was constantly reminding me that my children were my mission field. Not because I didn't love spending time with my kids, as a matter of fact I am one of the few moms I know that HATED when their children had to go back to school at the end of the summer! It was just that I always felt that what I was doing wasn't IMPORTANT as what OTHERS might me doing. So my mother would occasionally remind me that raising my children was the MOST important thing I could do...at least during that particular season of my life.

BUT, the importance of my mission field never REALLY sank in until my children were older and began to tell me, in their own words, that I was fairly good at being a mom.

One night we were watching a TV show and one character asked another, "What were you put on this earth to do?". And for whatever reason that question hit me like a ton of bricks. So, the next morning I asked my oldest, "What do YOU think I was put on this earth to do?" And she said, "You're a mom.", and I said, "THANKS A LOT!", and she says, "No, you're a mom. You are like THE mom. You could show young mothers how to be a mom." And it was then that I REALLY started to understand how important my job was.

Now, we have had a quite a few hurdles during the past few years that have made me SERIOUSLY question what kind of a mom I really was when my children were growing up. They grew up, started to make their OWN decisions and like the rest of us came to, or, are coming to understand that being a grown up isn't as easy as it looks. I am pretty sure they are beginning to really GET that our actions have some very serious consequences. As they have gone through this process God has had to constantly remind me that I am not responsible for their decisions. And let me tell you something, this is NOT an easy thing to accept and allow to grow in your spirit, especially when each hurdle seems to be a little bit higher.

ANYWAY...The past couple of years I was kind of excited that I could do almost anything I wanted to do because my children were pretty much grown. My time was my own...for the most part. I was spending more time in the word, journaling and writing. I took up gardening, learned to bake bread and purchased chickens feeling that these were important skills worthy of learning and passing on to my children and grandchildren. And I FINALLY came up with a handmade item I felt willing to "put on the market" after MANY years of being away from the arts and crafts business.

Then, late last summer, within a period of two weeks, I found out that my son had Type 1 diabetes...AND that I was going to be a grandmother...and I came to understand that in our particular circumstance my job as a mother would be a little more "hands on" than most mothers of 6 foot 4, seventeen year old sons and 21 year old pregnant daughters.

It has been a fairly hard year, and quiet honestly I don't see a whole lot of smooth sailing in the near future. The hand we have been dealt is someone "ongoing"....to say the least. And whereas the last two summers I was baking bread, tending gardens, canning jellies and raising chickens...this summer my gardens lay unplanted and I am once again spending my morning caring for a newborn while his mommy works oh so hard to support him.

If I stop to consider the "two steps back" I have taken, it can be quite overwhelming. And then I remember...every song I sing, every diaper I change, every load of baby clothes I wash, every bottle I give and ever prayer I say for and hug I give to our grandson... and our pretty much grown kids...is part of my mission field. And I am oh so thankful that my heavenly father chose to call me back to this particular kind of duty.

Thanks for the reminder Brittney! I will try to keep all of these things in mind the next time I try to write while jiggling a baby on my knee and having to stop three times to look out the window or find something else to make him happy! Maybe I will be back in the swing enough to get my gardens in NEXT spring! ;)