The Missionary
I once knew a young woman who felt a strong calling to be a missionary. She had been on a couple short missionary trips before and was greatly impacted by them. She had felt God’s love so close to her through those she served. She had seen the material, emotional, and spiritual needs and poverty of other countries. One spring night, not quite year after her last trip, she was restless while thinking about this. She felt she needed to go be a missionary – and right away. It scared her to leave all that she knew, her friends and family, and learn something completely new.
However, the thought of leaving to be a missionary filled her with confusion and anxiety. After talking to her priest, he encouraged her to give the decision time. He told her that God does not give us confusion and fear. “Give it time,” he said.
A few months later, she got a letter.
This letter eventually lead her to mission work. It took a few years, but she did become a missionary. She didn’t get much training, but instead had to learn as she went. It was painful work, self-sacrificing, and included many late and interrupted nights. There weren’t many breaks. Yet God sustained her and she kept on.
Over the years the number of people she serves has increased. She’s still learning as she goes, but she also has the wisdom she’s gained over the years.
And now every day she serves this mission field. She’s assigned to undomesticated people who eat with their hands, speak rudely, and even throw food at times. They leave their things all over and they have many battles throughout the day.
This missionary serves the people under her care as patiently as she can. She reminds them to eat with their forks, use their napkin, say “May I” rather than “I want” and picks their food up off the floor. She serves them food, washes their clothes, and picks up their things. Slowly, she is teaching these people to do these things themselves. She knows that part of her mission is to teach them to live well without her.
Another part of her mission is teaching them the English language, proper manners, and etiquette. When she began serving these people they knew nothing. She teaches them about the world, how to read, and how to interact with others.
She also knows part of her mission is to teach them about Christ. When they were put under her care, they did not know who Christ was. Teaching them is slow and sometimes painful, especially because she is learning that her example is the best way to show who Christ is.
Maybe you can really relate to this missionary. Maybe your life sounds very similar. Yet, maybe her story sound more noble than yours because she is a missionary? Let me tell you a secret.
She’s actually a mother.
She wasn’t sent to a foreign country. She didn’t have to learn the language of another country, but she had to learn the language of babies and children and homemaking. She doesn’t get accolades for sacrificing her time and energy to serving the poor and teaching people about Christ. But her children are the poor, they are the ones who do not know Christ, who need the ministry of a missionary.
Our work as mothers is that of missionaries.
So why do we mothers so often feel like we are “just” mothers? Because it’s all about perspective. Our society minimizes mothers. Regardless of if you work outside of the home or not, is your motherhood given the honor and respect it deserves – at least by you? If not, I want to encourage you to start thinking differently about your vocation as a mother.
We are serving the Church and Christ by raising Christians. When our children are born to us, they are naked and they know nothing. We clothe them and we feed them. We teach them to sleep and to talk. We are examples to them in how to laugh, to crawl, to walk. We teach them everything. As they grow older, the things we teach them are more complex. They range from manners to reading to relationship building. The things we teach them also include who God is, how to deal with emotions, and what the Church teaches.
We are not “just” mothers. Mothers are everything.
And yet, we can’t be everything with out support. We need our husbands, family members, and our fellow mother friends to give us guidance and respite. We need to be replenished so that we can continue to serve our mission field in love and joy. Just as missionaries have an organization and a support team to help them, we too need the Church and a support team to help us.
It can really feel that it is all on us and only us all the time. It can feel like it is all on us and also menial and unimportant at the same time. My dear sweet mamas, don’t fall into that trap.
Your mission as a mother is vital and absolutely necessary. It is honorable and it is holy work. Never forget that.
Adopt the mindset that as a mother, that you are a missionary for Jesus Christ by raising disciples. Therefore, you are vital and necessary, and you are doing honorable and holy work.
Did you catch on that this is a story about me? I hope my story helped you see yourself as a missionary in your work as a mother and not “just a mother.” Can you relate to this?