My husband has a tradition at our church of letting me present the sermon on Mother's Day. Below is an excerpt of my sermon. I will post the other parts of it later. I'm sorry for the formatting this time. I'm not sure why the margins and fonts are all funky. I tried to fix them to no avail.
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When I was young -- and more stupid than I am now -- I swore I would never be a parent. I had helped raise my brothers and sisters and I had had enough with dirty diapers, screaming uncooperative kids, and the mess that comes with it. I never realized or had been taught in public school that children are a BLESSING not a BURDEN.
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward" Psalm 127:3.
Of course, that changed when I got married and became a step-mother to the most adorable three-year-old girl I had ever met then or now. She was captivating.
I also started working with other people's children as a Kindergarten teacher. I soon realized I loved children and wanted children of my own. We waited three years before deciding to have a baby, and I didn't expect to have fertility issues. But I did. My oldest son came along, and though we wanted more children sooner, more kids didn't come along until five and a half years later when I went on fertility drugs to have my second son. Four years and several foster children later, because of my difficulties bearing children of my own, we adopted the twins.
I loved being a mother then and I love being a mother and grandmother now. Motherhood is the most important job I've ever had.
Has it been hard? It's been the most difficult thing I've ever tried to do.
Did I do it right? Do I do it well? Probably not. That's been hard for me to accept. I wanted to be Mother of the Year. I wanted to be the kind of mother that people write about in poems and famous people talk about in interviews with Oprah.
I wanted to be that mother spoken of in Proverbs 31:28: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. '
I wanted to be the Queen of all Mothers. But instead, I discovered that I was the Queen of all imperfectness.
If there was a mistake to make in mothering, I probably made it. If there was an opportunity not to be missed, I probably missed it. But one thing I did do was try. I tried with all my heart to be a good mother just as most mothers do. And I have no regrets for trying. So here are a list of things about my experience with motherhood that I do not regret:
1. I don't regret being a home school mom and being home with my children. I have a vast storehouse of precious memories to comfort me in my lonely hours. I have told this story before, but I'll share it here again. When my oldest son was three years old, he came into the house with a stick. He asked me to plant it as a tree beside where he was working on his tricycle so the birds would come and sit on it. I explained to him that birds are scared of people and wouldn't come. But he insisted if I planted that stick, the birds would come. So, I planted the stick. A few moments later there was a little sparrow sitting on it, right beside where my son was standing. I tapped the window gently to get his attention -- he hadn't seen the bird yet -- and pointed to the little bird. He smiled at me and went right back to his work. It wasn't a miracle to him. He already had enough faith to believe that if he planted a stick, a bird would sit on it. But it was a miracle this mother ponders in her heart to this day. And because I was home, I didn't miss it.
2. I don't regret going without fancy things so I could stay home with my babies.
3. I don't regret wearing the same shoes for ten years or driving an old, beat up, loud car so I could watch my children learn to read and write and memorize scripture.
4. I don't regret being a foster parent or adopting children who are cognitively disabled. Sure, I regret, perhaps, how I handle the stress sometimes, but do I regret being their mother? Have you seen how those boys love me? How could anyone regret getting that kind of love?
5. I don't regret bringing my children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. It's a tough world out there. I don't know how anyone does it without having their kids in church and in the Word of God.
6. I don't regret making my children go to church every time it was time for church.
7. I don't regret that people thought I didn't have a "real job" because I was a home school mom.
8. I don't regret graduating from being Karla to being "Noah's Mom," or "Jesse's Mom." or "Isaiah’s and Isaac's Mom" or Melissa's "Step-mom."
9. I don't regret keeping my marriage together even when it was very, very difficult, only because I wanted my children to have their father. The tough times passed. We made it through. And, as long as abuse is not involved, I do believe that children are a very good reason for a marriage to remain intact. Sometimes that's what it takes to get through the hard times.
10. I don't regret leaving a career behind that would give me an ego boost in order to be "just a mom." There is nothing more important that I can possibly think of doing.
11. I don't regret being home to see all the firsts that my babies experienced: their first tooth, their first word, their first steps, their first reading book. I relish all those memories and ponder them in my heart.
12. I do not regret reading my Bible often and teaching the Word of God to my children in the comfort of our home. I have many wonderful memories of our long Bible study discussions while snuggled up on the couch in our pajamas.
13. I do not regret reading to my children. These, too, are some of my favorite memories. We scaled castle walls and conquered fortified cities for hours in the pages of books.
14. I don't regret teaching my children the verse in Exodus 20 v 12 that reads: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee” Exodus 20:12. (We always joked that this scripture meant that I wouldn't kill them as long as they did what I said!)
I don't have many regrets, but that doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes. It also doesn't mean my children turned out to be perfect angels. Why, the nerve of them for not having the desire to run for President of these
I can waste my life pondering how I could have done things differently, or I can forgive myself and move on. That doesn't mean I don't grieve over my mistakes and repent of them. But God is not a God of yesterday. That is, when we do repent and come to Him for forgiveness, He forgives us. The Bible says that He casts our sins "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” Psalm 103:12.
And so, no matter the status of our children -- whether they are Governor of Indiana, or on death row, or by God's grace, somewhere in between, God has forgiven our mistakes as Moms.
Now, we can either wallow in self-doubt and self-pity thereby pleasing Satan himself, or we can learn from our mistakes. All that learning is why the Bible tells the older women to teach the younger women -- because we have made mistakes and if we were teachable, we learned from them. Now we are able to share our wisdom gleaned from the school of hard knocks with others:
“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed” Titus 2:3-5.
This scripture shows us that we can be TAUGHT to be good mothers and wives. That it isn’t necessarily something that comes naturally. What a relief!
It is difficult, though, to teach someone who thinks they know everything. So younger women (and older women, too) should keep their hearts teachable, ready to learn, and not so high minded to think they have nothing new to discover; or be afraid that someone will think less of them because they don't know everything. No one can know everything. There is always something more to learn. I am learning all the time. I learn everyday.
Before the twins, I was extremely self-reliant. It was a real blow to my self-image to realize that I could not raise these little boys by myself. I wasn't used to not doing everything by myself. I was a home school Mom. Home school Moms in those days were rugged pioneers. There was no Internet, no support groups, and not even many curriculum companies in those days. Nobody we were related to had ever home schooled. Nobody in our community home schooled or had even heard of it. We early home schoolers were made of tough stuff. By golly, we were independent, self-governing, free-spirited do-it-yourself women. My library was full of countless books on the subject of home schooling and child rearing. I was sure there was little I did not know about how to raise kids.
But just when I thought I knew it all, God threw me two curve balls named Isaiah and Isaac. Then, he tackled me with a little thing called Autism.
I'm so glad He did. Because if He hadn't, I wouldn't have learned all I know today.
One of the things I wouldn’t have learned is that God really does use imperfect people. I would have continued to think I had the market cornered on this motherhood thing. (Of course, the kids would have grown up and then I'd realize I didn't, but back then I needed a wake-up call.)
We are simply vessels that God works through if we let Him. And if we are perfect, without any imperfections, light can't shine through us. Like a perfect pot, with no cracks in it, the light can't get through.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” 2 Corinthians 5:7.
If only we who are so imperfect, will let God shine through us, His Light will shine through all the cracks of our imperfection. And we need to let it. Instead of hiding how imperfect we are, we need to get out there, get real, and let people see we're not perfect, and that it's OK with God. It's not like it's a huge revelation to Him. He didn't die for a perfect world. He died for an imperfect world.
It's OK for your kids and grandkids and all the church ladies and other home school moms to know you aren't perfect. Because then God will shine through.
Matthew 2:18 says, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."
There are millions of mothers today weeping for their children. Some of these children have died from hunger or illness or violence or disease. Others weep because their children are lost -- perhaps missing, or runaways, in prison, or not serving the Lord. Maybe you are one of those mothers.
If you're not a mother who is weeping today, remember the mourning mothers in the world. Remember that they need you to help them get through this season in their life. They need your prayers.
(c) 2008 Karla Akins
Posted by Melissa Bible
