Well, my big weekend is here—the event I’ve planned and prayed about for the past three months. The Mom Time Weekend, in which I’ll host 24 young mothers at our farm. The purpose is to give them an opportunity to be refreshed, recharged, and recommitted to the task of mothering their children. They also need inspiration to be the wives their husbands need in order to get their jobs done.
I’ve never felt more totally prepared, yet so completely unprepared. Prepared in the sense that God has for the last 46 years trained, disciplined, and shaped me to become a wife to Burt Sr. and mother to our five sons. I feel confident in knowing the relationship with my husband is loving and secure, and in seeing our sons well on their way to becoming godly young men. But then…
I realize how unprepared I am to talk to these young women who are coming behind me, because I don’t know what they will walk through in the process of rearing their children. I don’t know the issues that might need “fixing” with their husbands. I don’t know the fears and frustrations that hide in their hearts.
With these thoughts, I’m up before daybreak to pray, listen, and wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to my spirit. This isn’t some weird, out-of-body effort. It’s the simple, wonderful knowledge that Jesus Christ Himself lives inside me in the form of the Spirit, and He has all knowledge and all wisdom. All I have to do is clear my mind of clutter and distractions so I can hear His voice. The words I share must be the what the women need to hear in order to be refreshing water on the dry places of their souls.
Thankfully I’m not doing this alone! I’m blessed to have other women, some my age and some several years younger, who are helping me host this event. I’m immensely grateful for their commitment to their families and to the Lord. They are beautiful examples to the world of what success in this life looks like: their marriages are flourishing, their children are secure. These women are scattered around the state, as far as their residences. One of them I haven’t seen in ten years, two of them I knew before they became mothers, two are newer acquaintences. But I know their hearts, and I know regardless of what comes, they will be found faithful to Jesus Christ.
So this morning I wait. I wait to receive the fresh infilling of His spirit. I wait to experience the joy of His presence. I wait to be mindful of my dependence on Him and aware of my need to let my words be His words. I wait to be reminded that my job this weekend is not to make myself look good, but to make HIM look good.
My prayer this day is that the young mothers who come will see themselves charged with the most challenging, influential job on earth—shaping the next generation. I pray they will leave on Sunday with it forever settled in their spirits that they are doing what they were created to do and that the spirit of the living God resides in them and will equip them for their task.