April MOPS Coordinator's Article

April is our annual Tea and Testimony event at MOPS. Today we will enjoy a tea party brunch while listening to two women share the spiritual testimonies of their hearts. It seems only fitting that our session this month is entitled Botony 101. Like the growth of a flower, women need to have the seed sowed, be nourished and start to grow before they can bloom into who they really are.

As a woman in her early thirties who is mother to three small children, I sometimes feel as if that blossom is clouded by dirty diapers, school field trips and folding laundry. The monotonous becomes routine and that growth—as a woman, a wife, a mother and a disciple of Jesus—seems to elude me. At least it seems that way when you focus on the day-to-day details. Should I make chicken or beef for dinner? Pampers or Huggies? Should I mop over naptime or do some office work instead? The idea that doing these everyday tasks could possibly encourage spiritual or personal growth just doesn’t seem possible. Where’s the growth that results from packing a lunchbox each morning or scrubbing a toilet?

Well, the truth for me is that when I look back over the past few years as a wife and mom the spiritual and personal growth is everywhere. I just have to take my eyes off of the details and look at the big picture to see it.

"Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (Colossians 3:12)

Each day as I change diapers and direct the children in everyday activities, the Lord is giving me a lesson in patience. My, how I have grown from a once impatient person to someone who can listen to the dreaded why question from morning until night.

He also has instilled in me a compassion beyond what I ever thought I’d have when God made me a mother. It is not that I was not compassionate before I had children but this virtue has increased threefold now that I physically know what it is like to know unconditional love.

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.  We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” (Romans 12:4-6a)

It is amazing how God has allowed me to grow and flourish by way of the spiritual gifts and talents that He has given to me. I have discovered passions and skills that I never knew I possessed in my walk as a mother. It truly is awe-inspiring to know that God made me a mother and at the same time gave me specific gifts that would only shine in this new maternal role. Whoever would have thought that I would develop such a heart for other mothers of preschoolers and would come to lead the MOPS organization at BranchCreek? To me, that truly is a God-given gift and one that was only able to prosper once I became a mother myself and was in a position where I could relate to other mothers. Surely, God “knitted me in my mother’s womb” so He already knew that one day these gifts of mine would shine; it only took becoming a mother myself to bring them out.

So this month my challenge to you is to embrace your motherhood—spit up, laundry, dirty diapers and all—and ask God to grow you as a woman and mother in your role. In fact, as you look back on your time with your children, chances are that you, too, will be able to see just how much you really have grown. God works in funny ways like that. He knows exactly the right woman he wants to grow in her role as mother to your children: YOU. He will get you through these preschool years, and then the teenage years and adult years after, and will equip you for all circumstances. You are His child just as much as your little ones are your own children. So let Him guide you and grow you as a wife, mother and woman in Christ. He’s watering your soil so that you will blossom into all you can be.