Mundane parts of life are important too

I was talking with my best friend yesterday about motherhood. She's been married almost three years and has a young child. I love her dearly and have appreciated being part of her growing family.

You would think at some point the conversations would reach an awkward halt as the "stage of life" conversations come up, the ones where we discuss our dreams for the future and what our personal struggles are. Instead, I find myself fascinated with her ponderings, her concerns, her struggles, her battles.

Yes, motherhood is an entirely different station in life than the one I'm currently living. I currently get 8 hours of sleep a night. I don't share my time with a tiny human who needs constant food and attention and diaper changes. I realize our lives are very different in a lot of ways.




However, I also see similarities.

From what I've heard, being a mommy, well, it isn't easy. It's not sheer pain and torture. But it's certainly not a bed of roses and frosted bon bons. It's tough and it's a daily form of tough.

My friend sometimes wonders how she can possibly be as involved in other's lives when she has a little life requiring her constant involvement. Is it really worth the time? Is this stage going to last forever? How do you balance all your responsibilities against what you'd really rather spend your time doing?

I see some of my own struggles in that list of questions, the questions that arise during the mundane bits of life.

As a single person, it's hard to see the daily battle against loneliness or selfishness or self-involvement as worthwhile. Sometimes the simple and mundane tasks, like going to work or paying bills, suck the joy out of life.

Sometimes we're caught in a "waiting" mentality. We're waiting for some "thing" to happen, maybe it's a house, a spouse, or a job. We're waiting so much, the current responsibilities lose all appeal.

BUT there's something absolutely beautiful about the mundane, daily grind. It's not in the work itself but in the worker. His work is not in vain if he gives it to the Lord as a sacrificial gift.

It's a working unto instead of working for self.

Every diaper changed is another opportunity to serve the Lord. Every early morning and every traffic-ridden commute is the chance to give our Creator praise. Every morning spent without a sip of coffee is completely and totally for Jesus.

He takes the mundane. He takes the boring, the tedious, the seemingly pointless, and makes it beautiful. He weaves the tapestry of our lives using the threads of both trial and peace, the fat and lean years, the struggles and successes.

Every day won't be a Spurgeon- esque day. Some days will be ugly attitudes and peaking hormones and mean words and, did I mention?, NO coffee!

But the day in, day out struggles are the reminders we need to point us back to Christ. That's pretty stinkin' cool.

So that whatever your boring, mundane, no good day is about to bring...well it's not going to be boring or mundane or no good :)

Finally, a word from Ecclesiastes...

I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God. (Ecc. 3.12&13)