“Answering the Call” by Jamie Helms

As a mother to four young daughters, I feel pulled in many, many directions inside my home. From day to day, and sometimes from hour to hour (read: many times minute by minute, ha!), each child has a different need that requires my attention. Let me take you into a moment in my world.

The one-year-old needs to be averted from a pending crisis of having a chair stool fall on her head as she pulls up on it. The four and a half-year-old (because halves matter when you are four and coin change) needs to know why she can’t have permanent markers and why her older sisters can have permanent markers (they can’t, by the way) and why is it not okay to draw on paper with permanent markers atop the fabric-covered coffee table when she is VERY good at being careful after the last time she used them and she really learned her lesson. Phew.

The six and a half-year-old (are you sensing a theme?) needs to discuss her feelings of being left out after she returns home from time with a neighbor (because in her mind her sisters should have been feeling lost without her). And the eight-year-old needs to know why some girls want to talk about that they have a crush on a boy when that’s just absolutely inappropriate because I mean, Mommy. We’re eight. It’s not like we’re ready to get married or anything. Why do girls think about those things? (Can I get an “Amen” to my first-born’s woes??)

Topics, discussions, questions, and wants need attention and I am only one mama. Some days I feel stretched. Reality – every day I feel stretched in some ways. And in those moments I have to check myself.

Am I equipped? Am I enough? Do I have the right answers? What ARE the right answers? What would Beth Moore do? Does she have a helpline? Where is my ministry? How am I serving? Will that dress ever fit again? Is it safe to run at 9 pm in the summer so I can actually exercise again? If I eat two cookies at Panera Bread and no one is around to see it, do the calories even count? How many minutes do I have to run to burn off said cookie (or two)? What are one-year-olds allowed to eat? Shouldn’t I know this by now? Are strawberries a trigger food? What does trigger mean anyway?

These questions fill my head and overwhelm my brain and about that same exact moment when it is just toooo much, the Lord reminds me of who I am in Him. Am I enough? The Lord says in Ephesians 2:10 that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (NIV). So these FOUR children that He has gifted my husband and me with, He prepared ME in advance to do that good work of mothering them. So when those doubts inevitably creep in during the day-to-day mothering, He has to remind me that He prepared me for this great, wonderful task.

And He has prepared YOU in advance to do that good work that you are doing right now. Is it working outside the home? He’s prepared you for wholesome conversation and good work ethic. Is it leading a bible study? He has prepared the right people to come and sit and learn and grow from His Word spoken through you. Is it being a wife? The Lord prepared your heart to be intertwined with HIS heart and for you to be the best wife for him.

The Lord is sweet to remind us of who He is when we take a moment to listen to Him. Neither moments of calm where the laundry is all folded and tucked into the proper drawers happen often in our house. Nor has the dishwasher fairy that dreams are made of ever appeared inside our kitchen.

But the calm, for our family, is tucked inside the moments of folding laundry when I see the stain I tried desperately to get out reminds me of how fun it was to go on that spontaneous ice cream adventure. And I praise God for gifting us that time of laughter.

The calm, for our family, is in loading the dishwasher after dinner and seeing that most of the meals were actually EATEN, aside from the four-year-old’s ability to hide her green beans under her napkin and claim her empty plate as a job well done. And I thank God for how He provides bountiful food for our family while I secretly laugh and pray for God to take hold of that precious child’s heart and to direct her fervor for life in His ways.

The calm, for our family, is in folding my husband’s socks to be right side out and remembering the years past where I would leave them wrong side out as my way of being passive aggressive when I was mad. And I laugh and thank Him for His forgiveness and PRAISE Him for the good work He has done in my heart.

Subsequently, my mind follows a trail of funny remembrances of my passive aggressive ways: like the time we were visiting my parents as newlyweds. My husband and I had a tiff, and while he was in the shower I remember standing in the bathroom next door and flushing the potty over and over, knowing that it would produce a wave of hot water followed by cold water with every trigger of the handle. Terrible, right?

The calm, for our family, is in walking into the nursery and seeing the two sets of angel wings donning the wall and being reminded that although we lost those two babies through a series of miscarriages, the Lord gave our entire family the gift of remembering that this life is not where our joy comes from. This life is not the end of life. In fact, it is just the beginning, and I praise God for letting our children walk alongside us and discover He is far bigger and greater than any of our temporary pain.

These moments are pieces of my quiet time that add a richness to my relationship with Christ.

Quiet time, bible in hand, happens on a regular basis in our home, but just not in the quantified amount of time that I had pictured in motherhood. In the earliest years of motherhood, I think I pictured rising refreshed early in the morning (with my hair cascading beautifully off the silk-clad pillow), drinking coffee in a swivel rocker while watching the sunrise and reading God’s Word.

The reality is that the more children we have accumulated, the more likely it is that someone has a bad dream during the night, and so early-mornings don’t actually happen for this mama. And my hair situation isn’t the things dreams are made of early in the morning. I don’t know who those ladies are that can awaken with beauty and ease, but I could take a good guess that they’re locked up on the set of Hallmark movies somewhere out west.

And this mama hasn’t developed the love of coffee quite yet. There’s still time for me, I’m told, but the closest I can get to the love of coffee is walking down the cereal aisle at Publix where the coffee also resides and take a deeeeeep inhale. Or coffee-flavored ice cream. I’m in full support of that combo. Oh, and the watching of sunrises only occurs on sleepless nights with a newborn, and it is typically followed by tears. Not tears for the beauty of God’s creation (like it probably should be), but for the realization that I really didn’t sleep at all and now the day is starting with no sleep in sight. Bless.

I admit all of this so that I can tell you that if your quiet time looks more like mine (reading the bible out of the One Year Bible for Women while the children are eating breakfast, or later in the day during rest hour), be encouraged. You don’t have to have long, untangled locks and encounters with sunrises and solitude to have an experience with God each day. He meets you where you are, and He LOVES when you show your children that you love Him enough to spend time with Him openly and earnestly.

When I look at a conversation between the Lord and Moses in Exodus 33, I see Moses as a follower that desperately wants to know what God’s next step is. He just wants more information about the future. And the Lord says to Moses in verse 14, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” Sweet, tired, stretched mamas, His presence will go with you and He will give you rest.

So whether you are questioning if this stage will ever end (take heart, it will), or wondering if He has more children in the future for you, hear your precious, GOOD Heavenly Father encourage you as His daughter and remind you that He is with you and He is FOR you. And although you may not be given the next set of directions or instructions or information, He certainly can give you rest! And just because your rest may not look like you first imagined (like my early motherhood mornings are not my reality), life with your crew can be filling, rewarding, and full when we give ourselves the grace to see that what our Lord wants for us is to have time with Him. That supernatural time with Him will never return void.

So let that four-year-old have a meal where she doesn’t eat her green beans if it means keeping the peace with the family, and then turn your prayers for her precious heart over to the Lord. Know that His time with you is redeeming and beautifully restorative. And if you don’t have the love of coffee yet, try Starbuck’s coffee flavored ice cream. You won’t be disappointed.

~ Written by Jamie Helms ~

 

Jamie Marie (St. John) Helms is the wife of her precious husband named Alec, and the mama to four young daughters (Vivian, Fisher, Mary Crim, and Franny). She has a background in education, student ministry, and writing. The Helms are members of Willowbrook Baptist Church and are always looking for a new opportunity to serve together as a family.

Tags: Answering the Call, children, Family, Jamie Helms, motherhood, parenting