What's Really Important

Ok, so I'm reading another book that I love! It was loaned to me by a friend and it offers great insight to how having kids/becoming a parent isn't for our own happiness (though of course our kids do make us incredibly happy), but how God uses the journey of parenting to make us more holy, more like His Son. It's called Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas. Here is a portion that moved me today as I read:

Having been in lowly situations and having done less than glamorous work ourselves (changing diapers, mopping up vomit, and so on), we are set free to notice those whom others ignore. We've awakened to the fact that glamour misleads and that worldly "significance" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In this sense, kids can teach us what truly matters and what is, in the words of Ethel Kennedy, "really important." Indeed, children actually help us grow up, put away our own childish things, and see in the mirror more clearly who God wants us to be (1 Cor. 13:11-12). We act out of reverence for God instead of what Vogue or GQ tells us is the latest hot trend in glamour.

If you're a new stay-at-home mom, don't you dare look down on yourself because you've traded spaghetti-strap dresses for sweats, extra-large shirts, and towels draped over your shoulder to catch your baby's spit-up. In time, you'll be able to go back to those dresses (though you may have to upgrade to a couple sizes larger). Hold your head high as you add parenting to your resume. Though the superficial around you might look down on you, the process to which you've given yourself closely mirrors the most profound movement of all:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking on the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humblesd himself

and became obedient to death -

even death on a cross!