Rene
By Rene Thompson
Somewhere between Seattle and Emerald, there has occurred a shift in my world, with lava-like subtlety, and I recently realised that those mothers I had looked up to, those elusive ‘older women’ who would guide and encourage me on my journey of motherhood, were now back at work, and their kids were no longer at home. Now I am becoming the ‘older woman’of the motherhood world! With one of our children in her last year of high school and the ‘baby’ in year nine, I guess it must be true, though it shakes me to the core to realise it!
Being a ‘words’ person, I have innumerable statements and comments, some meant to be remembered, some regrettably uttered at all, slushing around in my head, and every-so-often, I will hear a voice from years past as though they were right there with me. When I put my make-up on in the mornings, I hear the voice of that girl from school who always felt the need to comment on my ‘little, beady eyes’ or ‘thin lips’, a voice that I can now brush away, but none the less, is still audible.
Or the voice of the neurologist on our first day of nurse’s training who was heard to bellow “How does it feel to be a nurse with no brains?!?”, not directly to me, but it was felt by all Princess Alexandra’s baby nurses of 1989. That one statement coloured our entire three years’ training, keeping us on our collective toes lest any of us should be found to, indeed, have no brains.
But there was an even more useful comment, in 1995 or so, when my own mother, after spending the afternoon with my rambunctious 2-year-old, said something along the lines of how “you really get out of the habit of coping with the noise and activity of small children as you get older”. I must be ‘older’ because I have started to look at mothers of younger kids and think things like “How many times are you going to yell at the child before dealing with that behaviour?”, and “Are you kidding me? You’re not going to correct that?” down to “O brother, they are ruining their children, and it’ll be society that pays for it!” How intolerant of me!
Which is why I’ve just come home from my first day helping out with a playgroup at church: Got to build that ‘tolerance’ back up, so I can actually have a conversation with these mothers, and fulfil my biblical requirement to ‘be the older woman’ who can “train younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” (Titus 2:4 -5)
I’ve been reflecting on the last 17 years of being a mum, and the different ministries I’ve been privileged to take part in during that time: being a part-time assistant to a highschool chaplain; running girl’s week-ends on grooming, deportment and biblical value; church janitors with Adam; music teams in numerous capacities and in as many different fellowships; women’s ministry leader/mentor; occasional guest speaker; parenting and marriage small group facilitators with Adam; and the unofficial role of house cleaner for busy women who were in ministry and couldn’t do it all. But in all of those years, my dad was the only voice who said “Make sure you are not doing anything outside the home that is taking away from your ability to be a wife and mother first”. That little piece of wisdom has come back over and over again, and served as a regular ‘stop valve’ for me, a check point to remind me to evaluate where I was and where I needed to be.
I wonder if you would indulge me the time to share some of the pieces of wisdom I have found along my way? If you are a mother in ministry at the moment, or the husband of one, or the parent/parent-in-law of one, or a woman who is planning on being a mother in ministry one day, you will probably be asked at some point for your advice. Here are a few tips and ideas I have found to be true and that I would use to advise any young, busy mother in the church:
1. I can’t give what I haven’t got.
During the baby/little children years, a ‘quiet time’ becomes defined as that moment when everyone is preoccupied with something/someone other than you, that you don’t even recognize as having occurred until, seconds after the realization, it is broken with a cry from down a darkened hall, a quickly escalating argument between pre-schoolers, or a “How ‘bout it?” from He Who Shares My Bed. There is an unwritten understanding that a mother who is not moving quickly, nor very angry, is open season for whomever wants to monopolize her entire being. So to make a statement like “Mummy is going to go spend some time with God now. Don’t come and bother me okay?” is silly, because when Mummy sits quietly in that big chair with nothing but a book on her lap waiting for God to show up, there is room for me too, right? I mean, what pre-schooler doesn’t want to see God, Who made the trees and flowers and puppies and all that?
I had a friend who had trained her two girls at 3 and 5 that she was going into her bedroom for an hour, and they were to sit quietly and watch PlaySchool and Sesame Street for that time. And they did it! It was a matter of training, and the fact that the two girls knew their Mum meant what she said. That Mum had a great ministry of prayer and encouragement to other mothers, because she took the time to read God’s Word and pray, so she had something to say that wasn’t her own wisdom, but what she knew to be true because it was from the Word of God.
2. Ask my husband what he wants me to do at home first.
Our husband and children are our priority over our church family, which is difficult for many women, as being a wife and mum is, let’s face it, largely a thankless job. I mean, when you bring a plate of snacks for morning tea at church, someone is bound to be grateful. But you can lug 12 grocery bags, a backpack and a screaming baby up the stairs, and no one will cheer. So where are you going to tend to put more time and effort? Into the job that gets us the biggest “Hurrah”, right? Not that serving in the church is bad: We are told to use our gifts there. But in honouring our husbands, in being subject to him, things must be taken care of at home first.
And it may mean some hard decisions: When we were homeschooling I used it as an opportunity to teach our kids how to serve. There were three houses I would clean each week, not expecting any payment, just wanting the kids to learn. One morning, as we were racing out the door of our bombsite house again, Adam quietly asked me “Is our own bathroom clean?”. Add that voice to my collection.
3. Ask my husband how he wants me to bring up his children.
Many dads are not as involved as their wives say they wish they were. But it’s tricky when they are. Here are two people, from different backgrounds, different personalities, different priorities and focus, expected to bring up children consistently and peacefully together. Ha! Which, I think is why it’s easier to let one or the other bring up the children and have the other parent there as a kind of ‘visitor’, who makes suggestions but isn’t really heard. And what makes it worse, is when either party goes to their parent, or a friend, for their advice on bringing up the children, rather than the other parent.
I’m sure it happens both ways, but I’ve mostly seen it in women, who truly want to be great mums. How often did I ask Adam what I should do in a situation when I felt completely over my head? Not often at the beginning. Partly because he didn’t know I NEEDED him to have an opinion (because there are many things a guy who is out being the wage earner for the family simply doesn’t have an opinion about), but over the years we’ve learned that we are in this parenting together and we both need to know what’s going on.
If I am so busy ‘serving’ in the church that I don’t have the energy, desire or inclination to serve my family at home, something is very wrong. My husband doesn’t deserve the ‘dregs’ of what’s left over after I’ve spent myself doing the religious stuff. He deserves the best of me, then the kids get the next best, then, if there’s anything left of me, I serve in whatever capacity I can and allow the Lord to fill in the gaps in the church with someone else. There is no place for sacrificing the mandate of submission to my husband because I think I should be involved in a ministry at church. Often our husbands see more than we do: that our stress level is a little too high, that we don’t have the time for him anymore, that we are eating take-away fish and chips again because I’m not home to cook. Something has to go, and it had better not be a husband, ladies!
4. Teach my children what their place is while I’m serving at church.
Where are their boundaries? What are they to do to fill their time? Teach them clearly where they are to be, what they are to do, so that they can help to set an example for the other children who will be around. If your involvement means unlimited hours at church, what are your children to do during that time? Plan activities, or play areas for them. Bored children will get up to mischief, and other kids will follow their example.
Also, make sure they understand this is not their home (although it might feel like it!). They need to show respect to this building just as any other place where they visit. And be careful of allowing them to have special privileges because of being there so much. This is so divisive among other parents in the church. I was in one situation where the rule for all other children at church was no kids in the office. But a couple of families, who did spend a lot of time there, let their children play in the office. It opens up our children to too many accusations, and puts them in situations they don’t need to be in. Make your children examples of right behaviour, as others in the church will look to you, simply because you are in ministry.
5. Pray for the Lord to work in other women’s hearts.
If there are problems within a particular ministry, it seems like we, as women, are so great at talking about it to everyone except the one person who can do something about it. If each of us only did what we knew we were to be doing, and we worked ‘as unto the Lord’, we would be able to show a lot more mercy to others.
Prayer is a hard thing for many of us, myself included, because I’ve learned that I don’t really want to hear God’s answer all the time. I want to hear that what I think is valid, so it’s easier to go to a friend who agrees with me. But often the answer lies in me shutting my mouth and learning to love a poor woman who is in this ministry next to me (which is God’s anyhow!) who really doesn’t have a clue that, if only she’d ask, I could tell her how to do it right!
I saw an illustration once with a big jar, about 8 walnuts in their shells, and a small bag of uncooked rice. The woman who spoke definitely knew her topic, homeschooling four children under 10 years of age. She shared that morning on Priorities: How to get it all done. As she talked about just a typical day at her house, that didn’t seem all that different than a day at ours, she sprinkled the rice into the jar, representing the small and mundane things that just fill up every day: washing clothes, folding, making beds, making sandwiches for lunch, cooking dinner, endless cups of juice and wiping up spills, sweeping again, washing the dog, bathing the littlest child… Then the walnuts represented the things she knew she had to get to: prayer and reading God’s Word, exercising, planning healthy meals, spending time with her husband when he came home, brushing her teeth…
In a jar, representing her day, full of grains of rice, representing the little mundane, there was very little room left for the very important walnuts. But when she tried again, with another jar and more rice and walnuts, she put the walnuts in first, then poured the rice over the top, and it all fit in there, by simply taking care of the important stuff first.
I cannot encourage mothers in ministry enough to take a look at the walnuts and make sure they get done first. And take your cues as to what is a walnut and what is a grain of rice from the Lord Himself, not from your own understanding. Lean on His wisdom and work within the boundaries He has already set up for you, as you endeavour to love Him with all your heart, soul and mind.
With high hopes for wonderful marriages in ministry!
Rene.
Rene Thompson has been a regular contributor to MarriageWorks Magazine since its inception (as Family Talk) in 1989. Rene & Adam and their two children now reside in Emerald, Qld. Australia. You can still contact them by email adamjthompson@yahoo.com
