When I am present with my children I am ministering
How you see it makes a difference! I needed some mentoring.I spent some time thinking about it and I found just the person. Her specialty was what I wanted and needed and it cost a lot of money. YIKES!!!
So I wrote out my intention, hung it on the wall and looked at it every day. I thought “how can I get what I need”. Then I figured it out. It was a stroke of genius. I am an organizing whiz and a cleaning dynamo. I had never met this woman but I knew a bit about her. She has four children and runs a couple of businesses from home. She is busy. So I called, made a unique proposal and voila, I have my mentor.
We minister to another when we teach.
I am sharing this with you because of what happened today when I was in her home. I was busily organizing and cleaning and her children, who are all out of public school for the summer, were just as busily messing and unorganizing. (Actually they were just being kids, doing kid things) Kim said, “Doesn’t that just get to you. You just get it cleaned and they mess it up. It seems like a losing battle.”
I looked up and smiled. “I raised seven children,” I replied. “It used to upset me. It did seem like a losing battle. Then one day I decided that I wasn’t at war. It wasn’t me against them. It wasn’t a zero-sum game where if I win they lose and if they win I lose. It wasn’t even about cleaning and keeping it clean. It was all about ministering.” Kim smiled at me and said, “I like that, I really like that.”
We minister when we comfort
How you see it really does make a difference! I realized that the reason I was cleaning and organizing in the first place was to minister to the needs of my children and family. I baked bread, changed diapers, cooked food, gardened and sewed all for the same reason. I was ministering to the needs of my family.
The meaning of “to minister” is to give aid or service and I would add, to do it with joy.
It felt good when I stopped going to war every day and just went to minister.
We minister when we work
It really freed me up. I no longer had to worry if I got it all done before they could mess it up again. In fact I no longer had to worry if I got it done at all. All I had to do was look for ways to minister.
Some days that meant doing nothing but teaching a child to sew or helping an 11 year old make bread. Other days it was all about cleaning up vomit and rubbing sick tummies and soothing sweaty brows. Other days I ministered in the park along with a half dozen 10 year olds putting a nature study book together. Sometimes ministering meant mountains of laundry and folding, folding, folding. I stopped going to battle. I made peace with myself, my family, my sometimes mundane work and that season of my life. I began to focus on ministering to those around me. How you see it, whatever it is, makes all the difference..
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