“If we have children, I will take no more than four weeks off work and put them in daycare immediately. No child will interfere with my life. I will never be financially dependent on anyone, and certainly not a husband.”
“I don't bake, I don't iron to your standards, I won't make sack lunches, and I sew with a staple gun.”
“The kids may go to private schools. I will never, ever homeschool.”
Those were some of the sweet nothings I told Richard while we were dating, before we married.
He still proposed.
Fifteen years after we married, I've broken every one of those promises except two. I still sew with a staple gun or pass the mending to my daughter who learned from Grandma the seamstress (his mother, not mine).
He still irons better than I.
My friends at the time would have voted me least likely to marry, to mother, or to ever settle down. When my path occasionally crosses old pals who knew me when, they are always shocked. “You're still on marriage number one?
You had children? You quit working to raise them? You homeschool?”
A couple still don't believe it and assume I'm joking.
Sometimes they ask, “What happened to you?” Answer: the grace of God changes everything.
So do great kids. Yes, we parent our children. Our kids also inspire us to grow up, straighten up, and become better people.
Whatever I give them, do for them, or teach them will never measure up to what they give me. They got a mother but in the process, I had to become one.
Whenever someone tells me, “I don't have the patience to mother, to school my children, or to do x, y, or z,” I always answer, “Neither did I. I still wouldn't by myself. Whatever good I give my kids is by the grace of God.”
Once, when David was a young boy, God helped him kill Goliath. That same God can take someone like me and help me parent and teach my children. He fills in my gaps and God only knows how big and jagged those gaps really are.
The God who helped Saul become Paul helped a mom like me grow to become a mother.
If He can take me and help me be a better person, wife, and parent, He can help anyone.
“I can do all things through Him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:1).
Paul told us earlier in Philippians what to do if we worry about problems or our own inadequacies:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you. (4:6-9)
Once we learn to do that or remember in times of trouble the world changes. The same person who 17 years ago preferred software to children now enjoys software with her children.
My children are far from an inconvenience. Every moment we have together is a gift. They give me more joy than I ever imagined possible.
“Least likely to” moms can become “most grateful for the chance to” mothers.
Thank God.
Mary Biever is a homeschooling mother of two who publishes encouragement articles and runs Encouragement Workshops For Today's Families.
This article was adapted from one of her columns.