Not My Own

My children are not my own.  I know that, and I think every Christian mother knows that, but it's still a hard concept.  Nobody knows what it feels like to love someone so deeply, so all-consuming, until you have a child.  I think God gives us that feeling about our children so we can better relate to what it was like for Him to give up His Son for us, and so that we can know how He feels about us.  Isn't it amazing to know that God loves us like we love our children, and even more?  Wow.  That's a lot!

I've been doing a 30-day mom challenge daily reading and some verses have really popped out at me and given me a better perspective.  It's all about looking at motherhood as a mission field.  That in itself can really change your perspective on mothering.

Psalm 127: 3-5 says, "Sons are indeed from the Lord, children, a reward.  Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons born in one's youth.  Happy is the man who has filled his quiver with them.  Such men will never be put to shame when they speak with their enemies at the city gate."

I've always focused on the "filling your quiver with them" part of the verse.  Ok, so that means I need to have a lot of kids until my "quiver" is full.  But this devotional I've been doing gave me a new perspective on that verse.  The simile that our children are like arrows in the hand of a warrior is depicting NOT that our children are to be preserved & collected up on a shelf for me to sit back and enjoy what I've made, but to be used in battle for God.  A battle against the enemy, Satan.  It is my job, as their mother, to hone and sharpen them to be sent out into the battlefield of this world.  That is why God loaned them to me.

The Bible is rich with examples of child sacrifice.  Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son out of obedience and trust in God.  Hannah gave up Samuel to be used by God, God gave us Jesus to save the world.  These examples teach us as mothers, that our children are NOT our own.  They are entrusted to us for a very short time, in hopes that we will raise them to love God and spend their lifetime serving Him.

It's easy to get bogged down in the daily mundane tasks involved in keeping children safe and healthy. When I spend every day feeding them, doing their laundry, cleaning up after them, wiping their snotty noses it's easy to lose perspective and just see them as mine to do what I want with them.  

It is my daily prayer that God will open my eyes to see what He sees.  To see every opportunity presented to me to speak His love and His truth to our children.  I don't want to waste what God has so very graciously entrusted to my care.  Oh, precious little daughters of Christ, please go out into this scary, evil world, sharpened and honed to glorify God and further His kingdom!