Long Days of Small Things by Catherine McNiel

Author:Catherine McNiel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Family, RELIGION / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth
ISBN: 9781631466441
Publisher: The Navigators
Published: 2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Living Icons

As we mere mortals go through the monotonous tasks of motherhood, we fulfill several important necessities at once. We provide for our children, who themselves are created, known, and valued by God. We step into a loving, nurturing role that is at the very heart of who God is. We mimic him, following in his footsteps, echoing his identity. And we create in ourselves a reflection of the gracious, compassionate, hesed love God rains down upon his people—regardless of who we are or what we have done, dependent only on who he is.

Do you see it? Cutting up avocado wedges for your toddler and a grilled cheese for your kindergartener. Hauling down the baskets of grass- and mud-stained laundry to wash before folding the last five loads. Waking up early enough to sign reading logs and drop the kids off at school before your own busy workday begins. Staying up late to listen to inexplicable tales of childhood anxieties. Stumbling toward the crying baby at 2:37 a.m. And 5:12 a.m. And 6:45 a.m.

These are not merely the list of chores we must do during a particularly exhausting stage of life. This is the very stuff of God. This is nurture. Has bouncing a baby kept you from attending Bible study for a season? You are living out the Bible study in your daily motions and tasks. You may have lost the free time you once used to pursue God, but you are studying him hands-on through an intensive internship developed just for you. We mothers love our children with an imperfect, impatient, exhausted version of hesed loving-kindness, which gives and gives even if our children never reciprocate.

Because we simply must. This love is who we are now.

And in doing so, we practice the love and nurture of God. We are living icons of hesed, the most startling idea of all.

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