Mother's Day Rant

A Christian mother who I'm connected to on Facebook posted this on Mother's Day...

 

I'm in a handful of mom groups on Facebook, and I admit to being a little shocked at how many threads this week involved grown women talking about what they were asking for for Mothers' Day, especially since the number one requested gift was "not having to mom for the day." Ladies. Please. (1) Are women really asking for things for Mothers' Day? Like, are there actually women making a Mothers' Day list, like it's Christmas in spring or something? (2) And if there are, the one thing they can come up with is a chance to run as fast as they can from their God-given vocation, from the blessings God has put, literally, in their laps? 

Motherhood can be hard at times. As a friend noted, "Productivity is low. Fatigue is high. Happiness is had, as well as a plethora of other emotions." And as such, there are probably very few women out there who would turn down a chance to wander the aisles of Hobby Lobby with a good hot beverage in silence for a couple hours, especially now! 

But to think we deserve something special for doing the job God has given us to do . . . and to think that the reward for that is to NOT HAVE TO DO IT boggles my mind. It's like the timeless Rev. David Petersen analogy of going to the judge or to a police officer and telling him you want a prize for not speeding. THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS. THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. 

My own mother would probably tell me this is something I should think and not say on Facebook. Now I need to to call her and repent. But before I do: Happy Mothers' Day to all you moms who are still cooking, still cleaning, still changing diapers and filling water bottles and making snacks, still reading stories and quizzing catechism memory lessons, still wiping down the table and turning out the lights, still mom-ming, today and every day.

In a Lutheran layman's terms, it's one thing to feel overwhelmed and stressed every now and then, but being a mom is such a sacred vocation that you should not so easily want to discard no matter how you might be feeling.



NOTE: Please understand that I'm not a called and ordained minister of God's Word and Sacraments. I'm a layman or just your average everyday Christian, Corporate Healthcare Recruiter, Husband, Father, Friend who lives in the "City of Good Neighbors" here on the East Coast. As another Christian Blogger once wrote, "Please do not see this blog as me attempting to 'publicly teach' the faith, but view it as 'an informal Public Journal of sorts' about my own experiences and journey." So if any of my notes here help you in any way at all, then I say, "Praise the Lord! Thanks be to God!" but please do double check them against the Word of God and with your own Pastor. Trust, but always verify. To be more specific, and relevant to the point I want to make with this lengthy disclaimer/note, please understand that I'm a relatively new convert to "Confessional Lutheranism" and one who recently escaped an American-Evangelical-Non-Denominational mindset a little more than 6 years ago now despite being a Christian my whole life. That being said, please contact me ASAP if you believe that any of my "old beliefs" seem to have crept their way back into any of the material you see published here, and especially if any of the content is inconsistent with the Bible, our Confessions, and Lutheran doctrine in general (in other words, if it's not consistent with God's Word, which our Confessions merely summarize and repeatedly point us back to over and over again) so that I can not only correct those errors immediately and not lead any of His little ones astray (James 3:1), but so that I can also repent of my sin and learn the whole truth myself. With that in mind, please be aware that you might also discover that some of the earlier/older pieces I wrote for this blog back in 2013 definitely fall into that "Old Evangelical Adam" category (and they don't have a disclaimer like this) since I was a "Lutheran-In-Name-Only" at the time and was completely oblivious to the fact that a Christian "Book of Concord" even existed (Small/Large Catechism? What's that!?!). This knowledge of the Lutheran B-A-S-I-C-S was completely foreign to me even though I was baptized, confirmed, and married in an LCMS church! So, there are some entries that are a little more "out there" so-to-speak since the subject matter was also heavily influenced by those old beliefs of mine. I know that now and I'm still learning. Anyway, I decided to leave those published posts up on this website and in cyberspace only because they are not blasphemous/heretical demanding I correct them or take them down entirely, but because I now have this disclaimer, and only to demonstrate the continuing work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in my life (Hebrews 12:2; Philippians 1:6). Most importantly, please know that any time I engage in commenting on and/or interpreting a specific portion of the holy Scriptures, it will always closely follow the verse-by-verse footnotes from my Lutheran Study Bible and/or include references to the Book of Concord unless otherwise noted. Typically, I will defer to what other Lutheran Pastors both past and present have already preached and taught about such passages since they are the called and ordained under-shepherds of our souls here on earth. Finally, I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the length of most entries (this disclaimer/note is a perfect example of what I mean by that! haha). I'm well aware that blogs should be short, sweet, and to the point, but I've never been one to follow the rules when it comes to writing. Besides, this website is more like a "Christian Dude's Diary" in the sense that everything I write about and share publicly isn't always what's "popular" or "#Trending" at the time, but is instead all the things that I'm studying myself at the moment. For better or for worse, these posts tend to be much longer than most blog entries you'll find elsewhere only because I try to pack as much info as possible into a single piece so that I can refer to it again and again over time if I need to (and so that it can be a valuable resource for others -- if possible, a "One-Stop-Shop" of sorts). Thank you for stopping by and thank you in advance for your time, help, and understanding. Feel free to comment/email me at any time. Grace and peace to you and yours!