Finding My Mission

Pierre Auguste Renoir, The Dreamer

Like so many people today, I struggled as a young woman to know what I should do with my life. What was my purpose? What should I be doing with my time? What would be the best use of my talents and resources? At college in the 1970′s, the answer to that question seemed to be, “Do whatever you want!” While it seemed fun at the time, there was still a hollowness in my soul that longed to be filled.

One day, a young lady knocked on my dorm room door and asked if I’d like to take a religious survey. Though she seemed doubtful as to my interest, I knew she’d actually come as an answer to prayer. And when she asked if I’d like to ask Jesus to forgive my sins and to live in my heart and be lord of my life, I was ready to do it. Suddenly, an entirely new avenue of possibilities was opened up to me!  The group of young people whom I gathered for Bible study with several times a week were very energetic and positive about encouraging new believers to reach out to others and pass along what we were learning. I gladly gathered a small group of new(er) believers to meet with weekly, and began to get truly excited about the possibility of using my life to help others come to know God and serve Him, too.

It struck me that just as Jesus had come into the world to teach people about God, redeem them back to him, and show them His kingdom purposes, He wanted His disciples to go into the world to do the same. Since I was a serious follower of Christ, just as the disciples were, I assumed that His purpose for them must become my purpose–to use my life to reach others for Him and to teach them what it meant to know and follow Him by understanding and obeying His Word!

One passage in particular seemed to clinch this idea for me. Matthew 28: 19-20 was a final command from Jesus to His disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I comanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus wasn’t asking His disciples to go into all the world and set up church buildings or youth groups or Wednesday night church suppers but to make disciples–to cultivate spiritual relationships with people, to draw them to Christ and then train them to reach out to other people who would also be trained and able to make other disciples. He was entrusting the messages and work of the kingdom of God into the hands of ordinary people who had come to know His love and forgiveness.”~The Ministry of Motherhood

Many years later, after discipling people all over the world through this model, Clay and I decided that if we were ever to have children, we needed to train them the same way. And so I found my mission–the same one Jesus demonstrated for His own disciples as He laid down His life for them on a moment by moment basis, loving, serving, training, healing, and finally literally giving His life on the cross for them. While discipling my children isn’t likely to lead me to physical death (at least I hope not!) it has certainly been a season of giving that includes  incredible, wonderful blessings for me at the same time.

My mission is to love well the people He has entrusted to me. To demonstrate for them the love of God through beauty and grace, through meal planning and laundry and crafting fun experiences for all of us in the midst of this crazy culture we live in. To inspire them to live for God and give their own lives in His service.

Do you realize you’re a mom with a mission? How are you embracing your own mission, today?

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