Time for Blogging?

I’ve had blog ideas floating around my head for weeks, and no time to sit down and type. At least no time when I could put together coherent sentences. And if that isn’t a typical youth minister’s wife, I don’t know what is! How do we get so busy?? And I don’t even feel like I’ve been doing all that much! But all the million little tasks that go into being a mom, a wife, a youth worker, a part-time employee, a daughter, a housekeeper, a chauffer, a sibling referee… I guess it is the faithfulness in all those million little things that really adds up in the end.

I haven’t even been reading 1 Corinthians 13, but I guess it’s been on my mind, because here’s what came out of my head… (with apologies to the apostle Paul!)

If I speak at a girls’ retreat, and have not love for the girls, I’m just an annoying cell phone, ringing at the wrong time.
If I speak to youth of honoring their parents, and don’t make time to call my own and go spend some time with them, and if I encourage others and grouch at my own family, I am nothing.
If I give time and money to missions, but don’t love the lost and different, I gain nothing.
Love is patient with the loud and obnoxious kids at youth group—you know the ones I mean.
Love is kind to the older ladies, who just need a touch on the arm and a smile.
Love does not envy the wives who have more budget to work with to fix up their homes.
Love does not boast, but gives God the proper credit for our successes.
Love is not rude or angered, even when that kid cuts you off in the traffic moving from the Sunday school room to the sanctuary.
Love is not self-seeking, even though our human nature desperately wants to be.
Love never fails.
Where there are object lessons, they will cease. Where there are videos on any topic, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge of the latest teen culture trends, it will pass away.
When perfection comes, the imperfect disappears…and faith, hope and love remain. But the greatest of these is love.

Self

Colossians 4:23
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

I can, and do, act selflessly. I am not selfless. In fact, I am quite self-centered. While I have learned to put my husband, my children, or others in the church or community before myself, I would be deeply ashamed to admit how often these acts are done half-heartedly, even grudgingly, and occasionally with deep resentment. How often do we resent the fact that our husband sashays off to church early on Sunday morning, leaving us to clean, dress, and feed not only ourselves, but all our little brood, hustling them off to church, not forgetting the objects for object lessons, snacks, and copies needed for Sunday school. Or maybe for you it’s the sheet music and powerpoint on your flash drive. No wonder one minister’s wife commented that she rarely sees a truly happy looking minister’s wife on a Sunday morning.

So, how do we turn all the daily annoyances into true service to the King? It requires a change inside, not in behavior. A change of mind and heart. One that will probably need to continue until the day we die, because at least in my mind, this is the most universal of struggles—getting past our inborn egocentricity, leaving behind self-centeredness for honest, internal submission—first to Christ, then to others.

Ephesians 5:21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.