God's Grace for the Task

February 22, 2011

I have been struggling with one thing for months, it's making me discouraged, it's making me sad, it's making me cry and question who I am in God.  That can be a good thing and then not.

I have, will, rather, we have always taken people into our home - literally an employee, a boss, friends, students - and even a foster child. I have always, OK not always, had the grace to handle having "guests" short term or long term. Most recently, a young girl, age 18, that needed a place to stay came to reside with us.  When the subject first came up, I said she could stay a few days and it's been over six months now.  I have struggled and struggled with this situation. I can't put my finger on it, except I feel like I just don't have any mothering left in me. Now this is very odd, because I have been anointed as a mother to all, and I am that, I have been that before.  Except for now, I feel I can't even mother this child - I don't know why, I've been asking myself for months now. It can't be her because she is easy compared to some of our guests, Robert you know that I'm talking about you.  But God always gave me so much love and grace, no one in my family could understand it, I couldn't understand it, except for God. Robert would stand at the door, ready to stomp out of here (long walk to town), swearing, screaming, yelling, "you don't care about me". Each time, I would stand there in front of him, letting his barage of profanity fly and when he was done I would say, "well, I'm still here and I still love you". At that time, he would begin to weep and I would hold him like mothers do.
For weeks and months, I have pondered and prayed about this situation. I finally began asking for wise counsel, wish I had done that a whole lot sooner. My first wise counsel was insightful, said my family all needed to be on the same page.  If we couldn't that I needed to release our guest because I was denying someone the blessing of truly serving her and her needs. OK, that was helpful.
My second wise counsel spoke so much truth into me, without knowing anything about the situation.  I was told it requires an extra amount of grace to welcome someone into your family or for any type of serving ministry. God equips us for that task with an adequate amount of grace to do the task well. I was told, "perhaps this is not what God wants you to do right now and therefore, He is withholding the amount of grace needed to do it well. God could be taking you in a totally different direction and wants all of your attention on Him."  My heart knew what my head could not conceive - yes my heart knew. I still have the heart of a mother, I am still anointed as a mother, but I have been mothering for 30 years and my oldest child is 25 years old. For whatever reason, God has called me to a time of rest from full time parenting, full time mothering. I am being called to full time discipleship of Jesus as He is doing a new thing in me.  He is sharpening the sword of truth in my life, He is preparing me to further mother a generation to Jesus and that's just where I am and that's exactly where God wants me.