Some days, I wake up and pour cereal through blurry eyes and change little bodies out of pajamas and wipe the kitchen counters (again) (and again), and I feel small.
I read about friends staring evil in the eye, unflinching. I read poetry about marriage and ministry and it floods my mind and stays in all the crevices. (And these days, there are many, many crevices.) And of course, I read stories from my friends who are in Sri Lanka right now with World Vision, meeting their sponsored children, answering the hard questions and bearing witness to true beauty.
And my life shrinks in comparison. Who am I? What am I doing with this one and precious life? Wiping counters, changing diapers, breaking up fights between siblings? Really? This is it?
But I've been around long enough now (crevices, remember?) to know a lie when it comes calling. And even though I may spend my days in the most ordinary of ways, I know faithfulness is not ordinary. Love is not the norm. It takes guts to focus on that unswervingly, to remember that who I am matters more than what I do.
When I started this blog five years ago, I named it Love Well after a passage in a favorite book that has marked me. I did it because I know my fickle heart and its forgetfulness and I wanted to keep this close. (Consider it a digital tattoo.)
What matters at the end of the day is this: Have I loved well? Was love the heartbeat of my actions? Did I care more about who I am and who was before me than what I accomplished?
If I can answer yes to that question, my life is not small.
Because love is never small.
You have an amazing ministry...it just doesn't look like the ones you've been reading about. That said, it's no less important. How you raise and love your family IS what life is about. You are doing the Lord's work and don't you forget it!
ReplyDeleteLove is never small. I needed so much to be affirmed in that truth today, friend.
ReplyDeleteMy life has been derailed with interruption(s) I didn't see coming and what I had planned is ... not to be. For now. But love is never small and it's Jesus - to all of us, to all of them.
Thank you, friend.
Such a sweetly relatable post. You have totally encouraged me today - I was just thinking so many of these things, and feeling so small this morning. Thank you, friend - this is beautiful!
ReplyDeleteMy heart resonates with what you shared Kelly! Oh my...Thanks so much for your encouragement today. Even "old ladies" need to hear it! Blessings dear one!! Your family is beautiful!!
ReplyDeleteOrdinary? Small? Have you met your children? What you are doing, and who you are raising...not ordinary one bit.
ReplyDeleteImportant. Valuable. Purposeful. God-breathed.
These are the words that come to my mind.
But then you already know that : )
I feel like this so so often. SO often. I can't tell you how often the Lord whispers those same things to me. I feel when He does, that this calling is great and mighty in the world where that matters. Accomplishments in this life (those the world sees) would be nice, but then I look around and say here darling, here's your lunch. Here are your clean towels, here is your diaper change, sweet one, here is your book I found for you. Here is your clean home, your cozy home, here is your happy and joyful mother. Here, all for you. Because of you.
ReplyDeleteLet us all have that digital tattoo.
It is ironic that one of my posts is linked above this, because girl, my life feels pretty damn small sometimes, too. I keep coming back to this same truth, this same revelation, for my own soul. It's all small stuff, over and over, until it adds up to big love. Thank you for this needed reminder.
ReplyDeleteOh, Kelly. I love this so! What important truths for us to let sink down deep. I'm grateful for the ways you have loved me well these past several months.
ReplyDeleteLove this. Love you.
ReplyDeleteKelly, thank you for this post. I've also read some of those same posts that you talked about (i.e. sending my husband into brothels...) and I think, "Jeesh, is my life being wasted, because I don't do that? " And then you come along with this amazing post about loving well. God sure does use you, Kelly. You might not live across the world in a little hut, but you are reaching so many with that laptop of yours and the wonderful way that you share your heart, soul and the truth of Jesus.
ReplyDelete