A Day of Small Things. Oh Joy.

Love these lyrics from Alli Rogers song: The Day of Small Things

‘Cause I am afraid of believing,
The plans that we make seem so big.
But you’ve shown me that we’re never alone,
and your spirit will stay by our side.
So I won’t despise,
I won’t despise the day,
I won’t despise the day of small things.

I think one of the lies of the enemy is that moms are dispensable...that what we do is small and unimportant. That's what the culture tells us, and frankly on some days that's what my heart tells me. What I used to do and sometimes still get to do feels heavy and important and hard. Somehow changing diapers and making dinner and cleaning up AGAIN feels small and in the disposable category.

But, do you know what I learned a few weeks ago and need to relearn today? Much of this feels small (though I know that in God's eyes it isn't - His economy is different :) but I'm allowed to find joy in the small things. Isn't that silly? Somehow I thought that I wasn't allowed to enjoy that which was simple - had no life or death importance. Maybe you've never experienced this. I think it has to do with that material/spirit split that the gnostics were pushing so hard in the early church. They thought things that had to do with the spirit were the essentials and everything material should be run away from at best, and killed at worst. We've still got some of this thinking in today's theology. That which is spiritual is important, clothes, houses, crocuses and shiny chocolate sheetcakes, not important. This creates a very confusing message for those of us who serve, moms, nurses, etc.

Instead, if I "remember" Eden and a God who created the miraculous milky way as well as the simple wheat and then called both good, I can learn that in God I can lift up the simple moments in my life and rejoice in them. This cuddling of the baby into my belly. It is good. This making a simple bread, bologna and cheese sandwich? It is good. All these small things can be a part of my relationship with God.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come. Come into my small things and fill them with Your Presence, Your joy. This can be Another Day in Paradise.