Fearing Insignificance: Now that Your Nest is Empty

If you find yourselves here from Encouragement Cafe: Welcome!

Image by Laura Hartog, Empty Nest Syndrome
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/starwillowstudio, CC BY ND 4.0

 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Sitting across from old high school friends, we caught up on all the years we’d missed between our daughters’ fifth grade graduations and weddings. Fifteen years later, we no longer sip a cup o’ coffee during their play dates, but instead we share similar experiences from our empty nests, now three thousand miles apart.

“What fills all your time, now?” I asked. And immediately I felt her embarrassment. I’d asked that dreaded question which plagues any stay-at-home mom and twice over for the stay-at-home-empty-nester. It’s the question I stammer to answer myself, as if staying home needs justifying.

While I couldn’t always afford being a full time stay-at-home wife/mother, I cherish the season I’m in now, where I’m not juggling office and home and church on the same plate. That doesn’t mean my plate isn’t full, but I’m now working for those that matter most—my God and my family.

I no longer run around like a banshee slapping four lunches together while gulping down a breakfast shake, or hunt for misplaced car keys while snapping at my kids to hurry out the door for school. Rather, as a stay-at-home-empty nester, I’m afforded breakfast alone with my husband every morning and uninterrupted candle-lit dinners. I can drive two towns over to sit in sweaty school auditorium and beam proudly up at my granddaughter singing a dramatic rendition of Disney’s newest theme song, or just lend a hand when my kids need help.

Staying home hardly means sitting around eating bonbons all day; although there are moments when I find myself in the empty nest talking to the cat curled up on my lap. But those days are rare. Often my days are spent caring for our aging mothers, helping them remain dignified, independent and healthy. I might drive them to doctors’ visits, pick up groceries, do their banking, mow their grass and rake some leaves; whatever they need.

And what about ministry? This…these words you’re reading, that’s part of my ministry. I felt guilty about it for quite some time. How can something I love, something I do in private, alone be ministry? Because when I hit that “publish” button on my blog, it sends my words around the world. The other way God uses my words? Children’s books. Silly little stories based on healthy family and moral values. And, when I walk into a school to present these books, or I’m at a fair signing these works, God’s right there, sending those who need these messages the most.

God presents each one of us unique opportunities to share Him with the world, no matter our circumstances or life season we find ourselves.

If you feel you are insignificant, know this: God sees you and He wants to use you right where you are to make a significant impact on those around you for His Kingdom.

Prayer:

Father, when we find ourselves feeling insignificant, especially in our family or ministry, show us how you want to use us. Help us to see that everything we do, how you’ve created us and the season we find ourselves can be used by you to make a mark in this world for Your Kingdom purposes. 

Living Beyond the Curse

 

"Instead of the thorn bush will grow the pine tree, and instead of the briers the myrtle will grow." Isaiah 55:13

Triple H Days - hazy, hot, humid - hung thick like stew for days. I camped out inside with the AC except for occasional runs from the cool car to the grocery store and back. It was even too hot for my Maine Coon cat who sprawled tummy-up on the kitchen floor in direct line of the artificial arctic blast, too hot to care about chasing mice in our neighbor's yard.

It was hard waiting for the promised cold front because here in New England weather changes every ten minutes (or so it seems), but when it finally arrived, we both welcomed it with all its loud booming and glorious lightning flashes accompanied by monsoon rains and lower humidity. Ahhh! Paradise.

But with relief came hard work. Every shrub and fruit bush showed burned leaves or shriveled fruit. Weeds grew taller than the day lilies, crab grass flourished,  and spider mites webbed their way through our ornamental spruce trees. Time for some low-to-the-ground calisthenics!

I worked for hours tugging, sweating, pulling out 60 gallons worth of weeds from my garden beds. And as each bag overflowed I thought about God's curse on the land found in Genesis 3:17-18 NIV:

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field..."

After my four hour weeding frenzy my little piece of paradise was restored, but not without sweat equity dripping from every pour. I wanted to give Adam and Eve a little piece of my mind! I often wonder what it was like living in the Garden of Eden prior to the Fall, before God cursed the land, don't you? I imagine temped air, gorgeous blooms in rainbow colors and lush green foliage; gigantic shade trees, delicious fruit trees bursting with food, and wooded paths along a cool river where God and man met on a big flat rock at the end of every day.

My heart longs for Paradise lost, doesn't yours? The perfect place where order rules and all is right between earth and sky, man and beast and his Creator.

Jesus came, not only to restore man to the Creator-God, but to restore the whole earth as well. In Matthew 27 we read that the Roman soldiers crowned Jesus with thorns. An elder in my church recently pointed out that these thorns represented the curse of toil, weeds, and thistle. When Jesus' blood flowed over his thorny crown, it redeemed us from the curse of toiling - not from work - for work was good - given to us by God after Creation:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Genesis 2:15 NIV

As followers of Jesus, we are Kingdom people - holding the glory and goodness of God within us. Therefore, everything and anything we do is sacred - done unto the Lord himself. As we make things "right", (whether we weed our gardens, change our baby's diaper, steady our aging parents, organize our office desk, smile at the postal clerk, whatever it is), we are agents of God's Kingdom through our actions and attitudes.

God calls us, through Jesus, to partner with Him to restore His Kingdom on earth (full of thorns and thistles) as it is in heaven (perfect order). We can't do it alone - not by the sweat of our brow or our limited resources - but through giving God all that we are and letting Him and His limitless resources flow through us.

Are we willing to live beyond the curse? Rather than toiling (grumbling) through our jobs, household tasks, or yard work, let's give thanks for God's provision - call forth His Kingdom in our bosses, our families, our bits of property - so that everything we have and do shines God's glory.