The Invisible Mom

Have you ever felt invisible as a mom??

This video by Nicole Johnson titled "The Invisible Woman" is so incredibly beautiful I decided to share it on my blog. You will see, it is well worth watching!

I know this beautiful story doesn’t need any extra explanations. You could easily say that she said it all. Having watched it several times I must admit that I shed a tear or two and I wondered - why do we have such a need to be "seen"?  Why do we moms want to be noticed? If you want to comment on my thoughts about invisible moms, please leave me a note at the end of this post. 

When I was in school, I once acted in a play, but my acting skills were miserable to say the least and my ability to communicate emotions on a scale of 1 to 10, in all honesty, hovered around 2. I didn’t even last 15 minutes in practice and the teacher took me out of the play and gave me some insignificant backstage task. Perhaps you can imagine that I was devastated! I felt as if I had been robbed of my opportunity to shine! But the real problem was, that back then, at the tender age of 12 and having been scarred by two parental divorces already, I didn’t understand why I wanted to shine. 

Watching this video, I realized that sometimes we moms crave some “fame” too. Just some attention, someone to notice us! It’s quite natural I suppose, that at some point in our journey as moms, we might think that we should be doing BIGGER things. Things that are being noticed by others. But I believe that what Nicole Johnson is suggesting is, that perhaps you are already doing that? Simply by raising your beautiful child? 

I know...we get tired of the daily routine! But dare I say that joining a Moms & Tots group, the school's PTA or even a church committee to distract you from boredom or insignificance, is not always the best answer at hand? The reason I am saying that is because it can lead you to compare, compare yourself to other moms and comparing, I believe, can be a dangerous thing. It can often lead to the thought that "I need to be more". But do we really need to be more?

Fact is, that Jesus has called us to serve (Matthew 20:26-28). I presume that he meant first serve our families, then serve others. So when, on a rather boring day of serving our kids, that nagging feeling for "more" sets in, perhaps we should first investigate the motive behind it? Do we want "more" to be a better mom? Or do we want more just to feel better about ourselves or make others think more highly of us? 

Today, almost forty years later, I understand why the teacher didn’t want me in the play. I wasn’t out to please the audience. I was out to please myself. Out of the hurt in my life, I needed to be important in some kind of way and being in the play seemed like a good start. It took me almost 40 years (and quite a few more wrong motives) to finally understand that I don’t need to do anything significant to be important. I am important because God made me significant just like He made you significant too!

Where did I finally find the answer? In my favorite Psalm. Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God!” (NLT) Be still! Honestly, how often do we “be still”? But every time I am being still, He tells me how important I am and lifts me right out of the depths of my daily struggle for significance and he’ll do the same for anyone who takes time to “be still”.

Did you know that quite a few people in the bible were just being still and yet, they became rather famous? Esther was being still for a long time, waiting to be important to the King. He later listened to her and saved her people! Ruth was being still on the side of Naomi, obediently following her around the country and serving her. She ended up marrying the most important and richest man in town! Lazarus was being very still, in fact he was so still he was dead. But he was raised back to life by Jesus! They all became incredibly famous and it all started with being still. So little effort got them so much fame. Less is more? Yes! Sometimes even in motherhood.

 

You might have thought that your life as a mom is insignificant, but now you know (if you watched the video) that you are building a cathedral and yes, you might be a “builder unknown” but that doesn’t change the importance of your job! One stone at the time, one seemingly endless discussion, one instruction even one argument at the time, you are building your child. God sees every moment that you spend raising that child and He thinks it is a moment well spent.

Let’s face it; raising children is a mammoth job. You show up day after day and make personal sacrifices for no credit at all. It is likely your name will never be  mentioned at any of his prize givings or printed on one of his/her Spellathon certificates. But God will know. He can see you. He sees everything you do. Having watched the video a couple of times, I agree, we sacrifice ourselves, not for them, but for God. So that one day, when they leave our homes, He can live in them and remain with them! 

Is it difficult? Of course! And we all make mistakes! Even within the time of writing this blog, having been distracted by my daughter several times, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, I have managed to shout at her "You are wasting my time!” Oh, Lord, forgive me for my own shortcomings! Remind me today and every coming day, that it is not a waste of time to raise my child! But most importantly remind me that when I need a break, when I feel unimportant as a mom...all I need to do is come to you and be still for a little while! Please Lord, bless every mom, granny or woman that is reading this post and let her have a meaningful day today!

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