I Am Your Servant

“Because I am not your servant, that’s why!” I angrily told Colette one day after she claimed “convenient dependence,” as I like to call it, when she wanted help with something she was quite capable of doing on her own.  She has this handy knack of falling to the floor in helpless despair at the request of the simplest task like putting on her shoes.  Suddenly my totally independent when-she-wants-to-be 3 year old, needs Mommy’s help at the most inopportune time.  But my response that day struck me in a way that has made me never repeat it again.
 
Am I not her servant?  And my husband’s?  And yours too?  And why should I resent so much this blessing of position that God has given me.  Not every woman has the opportunity to serve a husband or children.
 
Please, don’t misunderstand me.  I am an advocate for raising children who are healthfully independent.  I take opportunity in reinforcing to Colette during her moments of Mommy-inherited stubbornness that I only ask because she is capable of doing or learning.  There have been days of half-hour long silent battles (on my part- she compensates for me in the noise department) where Mommy refuses to put her socks on for her.  But to retaliate by claiming not to be her servant is simply a lie.  A mother is in service to her children and to deny that does the child a disservice.

There is a certain mundaneness to motherhood that wears on the soul- the spilled cup of milk on the freshly mopped floor, the next meal already being planned for as you are cleaning up the last one, the battle that comes with every request to pick up toys, the hourly need for a reminder that there is a better way to ask for help and a gentler way to treat your sister.  Too often I am disappointed by the lack of glamour in what I do.

It is not that I am looking for a constant thank you and heartfelt appreciation.  What I lack is actually self-recognition for the good that I do.  As a Christian, I have always struggled with serving God in the small things.  I tend to deem those in blatant need (poor, starving, ailing) as the ones I am to serve, forgetting that God places in front of me everyday opportunity to serve Him in a way that may go unnoticed by the rest of the world.  If I fail Him in these opportunities, I will also miss the opportunity to serve in a grander way.  “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much…” Luke 16:10

God entrusts me everyday with my children and my husband and those I encounter.  If I take lightly my service to them, how then can I expect to serve the hungry, the poor and the ailing?  If I have failed to replicate the love of Christ to my children and my husband, my love for others will fail.  1 Timothy 5:8 says that “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Now, I do believe we can become dangerously over-committed to our households.  If I shirk every opportunity to serve someone in love at the justification that my family needs me first, then I fail to show them an active love in Christ.  I also risk becoming lazy in my service to Christ and his Kingdom, when my clean kitchen floor becomes more important than my neighbor who needs some loving comforts in a time of need.

It is a struggle to feel like I am doing something overtly “christian” when I am wiping someone’s bum (forgive me) for the tenth time in a day.  But if I were to deny my service to my children, I could not stand a faithful witness to them of God’s love for them.  We all face the mundane in our world and it is easy to get caught up in the complacency of what needs to be done.  It is even easier to forget that in all we do, we are to do it in service to the Lord.

One day while checking out at Kroger, the cashier launched into a story about how she was in need of a winter coat and stumbled upon the perfect one at a Salvation Army.  I grew uncomfortable at the line behind me as she told me the coat was made for her- the perfect color and fit!  “Isn’t the Lord good?” she proclaimed.  I nodded.  She went on to tell me how He supplies our every need when we are faithful to Him.  And then she told me about her church.  I had never seen her before.  I have never seen her again.  This was years ago.  But I know her name was Jacqueline and I will always remember her as one who remembered to serve her Lord even as a cashier at Kroger.

As we go about our day, we should remember to accept our position as servants, no matter what title this world has given us.  We all have an opportunity to lovingly serve others in the manner that Jesus served us.  It requires some humbling and some sacrifice, but we gain much from these small opportunities.