The Invisible Woman...

Before Christmas, a sweet lady who has become a sweet friend and mentor sent me a book before she left to move back overseas.  The circumstances of her and I meeting this Fall were God ordained.  We have skyped once since she moved overseas and she has such sweet words of encouragement and wisdom in this season of motherhood.  On the same day I received this book, I got an article from a mentor friend about the same thing.  I think God is trying to teach me something lately. 

The book is the Invisible Woman- When Only God Sees by Nicole Johnson.  I have been struggling the last few months with motherhood.  I feel like I have been having a motherhood mid-life crisis.  I love my sweet little ones the Lord has given me and yet there is at times a longing for more- more serving more ways to be involved in ministry outside the home.  I know they are good desires but they have become cravings and have blinded me to my main role of motherhood at home.  Face it, we as mothers do not get pats on the back often.  Our children scarcely or may never rise and call us blessed and I know I was beginning to feel lost in the shuffle.  I know my role is to support my husband in ministry but often I felt like I was the one left at home while he went out and met with people and did real ministry.  Was I desiring the praise of men or applause?  I am still thinking through all those things.  This book challenged me that God does see what I am doing and my work in doing dishes AGAIN and wiping noses and changing diapers is to His glory! 

In the book she mentions how no one really knew who built the great cathedrals in Europe- many gave their whole life build something they would never see finished.  They lived with the applause of God and worked as unto Him because only He sees!!!  She says that our invisibility is love’s most beautiful gift.  My prayer is that I would see my job as a mother as building a cathedral in little hearts as unto the Lord!  She says, “Invisibility is not inflicted upon me, it is a gift to help me truly serve.”  “The deepest satisfaction of my heart is found in the faith to work and build and love for a greater purpose than my own.”  She says “invisiblity is love’s most beautiful costume, given only to its choicest servants when they are really serious about serving.”  She says, “invisibility is no longer a disease that is erasing my life.  It is actually the hard cure for the disease of self-centeredness.  It is the antidote to my stubborn pride.”  A challenge is for us all to think of ways to be anonymous and to truly love and serve our family and others in invisible ways- expecting nothing in return.  My prayer is that we as moms remember that God sees our labor of love- that our invisibility is a cure for our pride and a beautiful act of love given by Him.  May we see and encourage invisible women around us that they are great builders to the glory of God.

A passage that a friend shared with me on this subject- Heb. 6:10- “For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love that you showed for His sake in serving the saints, as you still do.  And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”  Philippians 2:4-8- “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but made Himself NOTHING, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death- even death on the cross.”  And another I read today- Colossians 3:17- “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”