by Dawn Hermmann
Published with permission.
Not long ago I was young, standing on the cusp of adulthood, full of ideals, aspirations and dreams, wondering what life would bring. Somehow, time moves forward, and now a good stretch of my life's journey lies behind me.
When I was a senior in high school, over a number of months and in some vivid ways, God, without my asking, revealed to me that I would be getting married to a particular person. Keeping that in mind, but still being happily single, I enrolled at a university to pursue a career in computer programming. In March of my freshman year at college I received a proposal from the brother whom God had shown me. We were married the following July.
Our first years of marriage pretty much followed an ordinary, typical pattern of any young couple, and God began blessing us with children. Over time I found myself feeling frustrated with the normalcy of my life. Although it wouldn't be until later in life that I would identify my high school encounter with God as a "calling", I did believe that the reason God had prepared me for marriage was because He had important work for my husband and I to do for Him. At this point of my life, though, all my days blurred together and consisted of meeting the needs of several small children and my husband.
It was on one of those days that I was down the basement sorting laundry. Most of our clothes were down there, it seemed, piled in heaps on top of a brown area rug next to the furnace. A green wire clothesline stretched along the low ceiling beams over to the concrete block wall. As I stooped over to pull clothes out of a pile, my husband came down, rested his hand on the clothesline, and stood there. When I looked up he said flatly, without emotion, "You don't want to be a mom. The children and I are hindrances to you." He was right. What he said was true--I didn't want to be a mom. I didn't want to spend my days wiping noses, feeding babies, doing laundry. I wanted to be doing something outside of myself, something that mattered. I wanted to be involved in needy people's lives, and instead I was consumed with my own family, and I was frustrated. But wait--in the end I really DID want to be married and have a family. I really DID want to be a mom, I just had not been prepared for what it actually entailed. That day, in the dim recesses of an old basement, I made a decision to embrace motherhood.
And for the next twenty years, mothering is what I did. I devoted my days to babies, toddlers, and preschoolers along with homeschooling elementary, junior high and high school children. I was fulfilled and blessed at home, but still thinking of myself as doing nothing of significance. I continually prayed that God would teach me how to be a faithful steward of my time, energy and money, but my life did not look like what I thought a "sold-out" person's life should look like. In fact, my life of "doing nothing" was stretching me beyond my capacity and using me up.
At 45 years old, I prepared for my first mission trip, accompanying my son on his Bible Class trip to CVE in Magdalena. I left home for Magdalena weary, dissatisfied and hurting, hardly in a state to serve others. I needed to hear from God.
It did not take long to orient to the CVE campus. As I observed the school, family homes, kitchen and dining room, laundry facilities, garden and work projects, a realization slowly began to dawn in my foggy mind. This is what I do! This is exactly what I do! I am running a school, training my children, providing three meals a day, clothing my family, gardening for ourselves and our small produce business, and coordinating my children in numerous projects. Occasionally I even extend hospitality to someone. Is my work less noble?
Taking advantage of an extra hour one morning in Magdalena, I sought a private place, hoping to receive encouragement from the Word. And there, behind the women's dorm, the Lord met me. He met me in my weakness, not because I was serving in a ministry, not because my husband was in a leadership position, and not because my job was anything more than ordinary, mundane or routine. He met me because I needed Him. And this is what He said:
Hearken now unto my voice. I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee.
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.
These verses validated that I was carrying a heavy workload--too heavy, and the verses that follow in Exodus 18 give instruction to distribute responsibility for oversight of the work at hand.
So shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.
If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.
My job responsibility for the week at CVE was meal clean-up, and from the vantage point of the dish rinsing station, I watched the continuous cycle of a kitchen and dining room at mealtime. Clean room, people eating, temporary mess, clean up, clean room. I just as well shake my fist at the sun when it rises each morning and sets each night as be angry with the mess of daily living. Messes and mundane chores are an inevitable part of life no matter where one is living, and not necessarily more glamorous on the mission field. I returned home renewed, with a fresh perspective and a plan of action for running my household. I was deeply humbled that God cared about my work, unremarkable as it seemed to me.
My life is still full of ordinary tasks, although not as intensely busy as those years. Even though the expectations I had for how my calling would play out have not necessarily been fulfilled, I feel richly blessed and thankful for where I am in life. I recently spoke with an older woman who had been a missionary in Africa in her younger years. I said, "You had an adventurous life." She turned it right around saying, "No, you had an adventurous life." She invested nearly 30 years of her adult life in a small community in Swaziland, compiling a concordance for the Zulu Bible. I invested that amount of my adult life into raising and homeschooling a large family. One person could not have done both. Understanding this helped me to see that God has different work for each of His children, and we cannot live another person's life. I had to grieve the lives that were not mine to live.
Somehow that conversation opened my eyes to what God had actually called me to when I was 17 years old. I thought I was called because I would be doing great things. I am beginning to understand now that my life, as I have lived it, is what He "set me apart" to do. A calling is simply a reminder that we do not belong to ourselves. Our life is not our own. Calling or no calling, we all are to be crucified with Christ. We do not strive to get done, or get through the common, ordinary responsibilities of life so we can finally do great things for God. Our ordinary daily living becomes a great work when we do it in the love of God, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit along the way. I am slowly grasping these truths, and they are very freeing.
It is quite a lovely place to be when we no longer need to be noticed or recognized for our work, when we understand that God sees greatness in lowliness, servanthood and child-like humility. When small daily acts become noble and life-impacting because they are done for an Audience of One. When we are pleased to be obscure, to play a supportive role versus a lead role, to work without a title. When the only affirmation we need is our Lord saying "Well done, my good and faithful servant. "
The place we are when we no longer desire to be first--in talent, influence, honor or rank. When our ministry becomes an outpouring of the fullness of the Holy Spirit living in us instead of a compartmentalized activity or a means of identity. When whatever we do, we do it heartily as for the Lord, understanding no one act is more significant than another.
When we do not consider ourselves above the masses but regard others better than ourselves. When we read the Word to put it into practice, not to increase our knowledge or for the purpose of teaching others. When we are as content in the pew as on the pulpit, to learn as to teach, to be led as to lead. When we are happy to be the "servant to wash the feet of the servants"1. When we humbly accept responsibility and position when called upon, not drawing attention to ourselves. This is where I long to be.
Jesus says, "Come to Me, come follow Me and learn of Me. I am here, in this place."
11Sa 25:41
servant - those who advance others' interests even at the sacrifice of their own; devoted to another to the disregard of one's own interests
