I've been thinking lately about what is involved in mothering. So when I read the daily devotion from Elisabeth Elliot today, it impressed me. She writes of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She paints a picture of a woman who humbly served our Lord by undergoing a relationship with Him that no other person on earth before or since has had: she mothered Him. I want to share here what Elisabeth Elliot writes:
Hers was a hidden life, a faithful one, a holy one--holy in the context of a humble home in a small village where there was not very much diversion. She knew that the ordinary duties were ordained for her as much as the extraordinary way in which they became her assignment. She struck no poses. She was the mother of a baby, willing to be known simply as his mother for the rest of her life. He was an extraordinary baby, the Eternal Word, but His needs were very ordinary, very daily, to his mother. Did she imagine that she deserved to be the chosen mother? Did she see herself as fully qualified? Surely not. Surely not more than any other woman who finds herself endowed with the awesome gift of a child. It is the most humbling experience of a woman's life, the most revealing of her own helplessness. Yet we know this mother, Mary, the humble virgin from Nazareth, as "Most Highly Exalted." Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart (if you want to read the full devotion, you can find it at "Back to the Bible")
A humbling experience, the most humbling experience, the most revealing experience of our helplessness, yet one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have: to be a mother. I am not mothering any perfect children--sometimes I wish I were--but I can look to Mary as an example of a woman who knew she was serving the Lord her God in the every day routine tasks of serving her children. She kept silent, she pondered (and prayed) , she marveled at God's goodness and majesty in choosing her, and she was with her Son until His death. She was faithful to God in the task He entrusted to her; I pray that I can be faithful in the same.
