Your I.D., Please!

When I was seven months pregnant with twins, I had my purse stolen, along with it my wallet, day planner, and about $25. It was a huge inconvenience to call the credit companies and make sure charges were not billed to me. When I got my new cards, I immediately wrote on the back, “Ask for ID.” You would think with the bold letters yelling at the cashiers, they would get the hint, but in reality, only a few ever ask for proof that I am, indeed, the credit card’s rightful owner. My driver’s license proves that I am who I actually say I am. Though the picture is not flattering, and the weight is alarming, it is a fair representation of who I am. It is my identification…my identity, if you will.

Many of you who might be reading this have had your claim to fame in your day. Maybe it was being the valedictorian at your high school, the volleyball captain, the president of a collegiate organization, or maybe you even had a career before you had children. Perhaps you made a respectable amount of money. You were somebody! Everyone who knew you, knew you for a certain accomplishment. That was your identity.

And then, here comes baby. Suddenly, you exchanged business trips, paychecks, and respect for smelly diapers, singing endless refrains of “Winnie the Pooh,” and nights of interrupted sleep for a small person who couldn’t care less about your GPA or advanced degree. To your former coworkers, and possibly your own family, you wasted four years of college. After all, they say, you don’t need a college degree to change diapers! All that work on your career just to throw it out the window! What a waste of talent. This is what the world would like for you to think. Who are you? You’ve been labeled: “Stay-At-Home-Mom.” Sounds glorious, doesn’t it? Your identify is now only in reference to someone else—it’s been lost. Or has it?

What is your identiy? What is it you actually do? I won’t waste your precious time by expounding on the “glorious” tasks you accomplish throughout your day, but I would like to mention a few aspects of motherhood that might have flown under your radar today. This is, indeed, your true identity!

You are glorifying God by fulfilling the role He ordained for you.
Titus 2:5 tells us that we are “to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to [our] own husbands, that the Word of God be not blasphemed.” Paul instructed Timothy: “I will therefore that younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.” Keeping your home and guiding your children glorifies God and prevents the church and God’s very Word from being blasphemed. This is a very important responsibility!

You are training the future leaders of the church.
Small children are naturally selfish and immature. Looking at them now, you might think that your children have a long way to go before they could ever be used by the Lord. However, you must keep the future in mind as you work day after long day with them. You have a goal in mind: to raise this little life to serve the Lord with his whole heart, to love God with his whole heart, and to bring glory to God. Deuteronomy 6:7 says: “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Psalm 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Psalm 78:4 & 7 says that we should be “shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done…that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.” Sticking to this goal requires discipline on your part and daily love and determination to be a woman of the Word and of much prayer.

You are molding and shaping a life.
Look at the historical records of the kinds in the Old Testament. It is filled with sad accounts of those who have gone astray because of the influence of their parents: 1 Kings 22:52: “He did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother.” 2 Chronicles 22:3: “For his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly.” Remember also the tragedy of John the Baptist in the New Testament when Herodias’ daughter listened to her mother’s advice in Matthew 14:8: “And she, being before instructed of her mother said, Give me here John the Baptist’s head in a charger.” Pretty sobering, isn’t it? We like to blame outside influences on our children’s bad decisions, but in reality, the blame lies squarely on us. It is your responsiblity to train up your children in Christilikeness. It is not the responsibility of your child’s Sunday School teacher, his Christian school teacher, or even the pastor. Yes, they contribute to your child’s nurture and education, but the primary responsiblity falls on you. “The father to the children shall make known thy truth” (Isaiah 38). I like to remind myself of Ephesians 5:1 which says, “Be ye therefore followers (imitators) of God, as dear children. If your children are anything like mine, they like to imitate. Children are little sponges who pick up on every little thing. What are you communicating? Are you communicating gentleness, kindness, patience, longsuffering, love, mercy and Christlikeness or would you be embarrassed to have your children repeat the same thing at church? You have all day, every day, for all their childhood years to influence them. Will it be for Christ? In imitating you, will they be spiritual failures or lifetime worshippers of the true God?

Perhaps after being reminded of these truths, you again realize what an awesome responsiblity you have as a mother to your children. How much more important is this than contributing to a business or a great organization? Hantz Bernard, director of Bibles International, once said to me: “You are doing the work of the Lord at home.” Doing the work of the Lord at home. This is an identity that I’m not ashamed to own up to.