Walking in His Footsteps
The role of motherhood often, often, often feels as though one is merely treading water, or running around a hamster wheel, or living in constant state of deja vu.
How many times did I sweep that kitchen floor today?
You mean you haven’t learned from the twelve other times I disciplined you today, NOT to do that?
I JUST DID the laundry, how did that pile grow so high?
Its mealtime AGAIN? I haven’t even done the dishes from the LAST meal.
Oh good, I just love cleaning spilled oatmeal off of the floor I mopped 15 minutes ago.
And so it goes.
Motherhood abolishes any hope and satisfaction we could possibly find in accomplishing the “to-do” list, because that thing we just thought we could cross off, gets put back on the list in…oh, say, 45 seconds.
And this is why mothering without a Living Lord who has promised His presence, can lead to…insanity.
But when those things that we do over and over and over again are opportunities to commune with a Living God, a Jesus who himself stooped to wash filthy feet with a basin and towel, a Lord who touched the leper, and stopped and responded to the cries and the needs of the lowly beggar, and fed the masses (I might only have five, but they EAT like they are five thousand). Then I realize I have an incredible privilege to walk in many ways as my Savior did.
The blessed, glorious thing is that Jesus’ actions are not some lofty moral path that I strive to obtain, but rather a picture of what happens when a Living God fills and propels a completely emptied and obedient human vessel. Jesus and the Father were one.
But on the cross, they were ripped asunder.
That the temple’s curtain might be ripped asunder.
So that I might know that sweet oneness.
His work on the cross cleansed me so that the same Living Spirit of God that filled and propelled Him, can fill and propel me.
So it is no longer, me looking at Jesus and imitating what He has done, but rather seeking to be the available, emptied servant that He was so that HE can do his serving, and healing, and feeding, and ministering through me to my own little brood.
And I can truly walk in His footsteps, because they are actually His.
He’s just using my feet.