Monday Q&A-My thoughts on mothering and wifing

Every Monday I answer a few questions from you, my readers! If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post (or a question that you’d like me to pose to my husband), leave me a comment, or email me (the frugal girl {at} gmail {dot} com) and put “Q&A” in the subject line.

Before I answer today’s question, I have a question for you! I’m going to be working on putting together some Christmas-related posts in the next month, and I was wondering if there’s any particular Christmas topic you’re wanting me to address. If there is, just leave me a comment telling me what you want me to talk about, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.

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I’d love to hear your philosophies on being married and raising children.
-Eva

This question was sent to me for Q&A some months ago, and when I first read it, I thought, “Yikes! How will I ever fit that into a single post?”. But as I’ve mulled it over, my thoughts on the topic have sort of gelled, and today I hope to give you a semi-brief answer to the question.

While I try not to be preachy about my faith here on this blog (scratch that…I try not to be preachy anywhere!), it’s impossible for me to talk about this without explaining some things about my Christian faith. It’s what makes me tick. So, be warned…if you can’t stand this type of thing, you might want to skip my answer!

In a nutshell, I think that my purpose here on earth is to glorify God, and one of the main ways I do that is by serving other people (especially those people up there in that picture!).

In other words, I serve God by serving others. The principal objects of this service are my husband and my kids, but I also serve my church family and my extended family, I serve my customers when I teach piano and do photography, and hopefully I serve you through my blog. This is not an exhaustive list, of course (I also try to serve my neighbors and friends, for example), but I think you get the basic idea.

I know this doesn’t sound like a super-duper fun way to live my life because in our culture, the idea of being a serving isn’t particularly esteemed. Few people think, “Ohhh, I really, really want to spend my life being servant!”.

But, the Bible says that Jesus was a servant. He came down from heaven to serve people like me, and I want to be like Jesus and serve others.

In a counter-intuitive way, looking at life in a “What would serve others best?” sort of way actually helps to keep me from running myself ragged. For example, if I don’t get enough sleep, if I don’t get time with God, and if I don’t get some alone time, my ability to serve is compromised. So, in order to serve my family, I go to bed on time, I get up early so I can spend time with God, and every couple of weeks, my husband watches the kids so that I can go out all by myself (I usually go to Atlanta Bread Company, re-asess my priorites, and plan how best to serve my family).

Thinking in a servant-y (I just made that word up!) way also gives me the courage to correct my children and confront my husband when necessary. Servanthood isn’t about being a doormat for other people…it’s about doing what really serves them. So, because I want to serve my children well, I correct them when they do something wrong. And because I want to serve my husband, I let him know when he has offended me (it’s what he’s requested, after all!), even though my tendency is to avoid confrontation. And though it might seem more servant-like to do everything for my kids, I know that teaching them how to do things for themselves is what serves them best. So, I make them clear their dishes, clean up their messes, and pitch in with chores, among other things.

Though I don’t always have a cheerful attitude about serving others (diaper changing isn’t a really inspiring way to serve!), by God’s grace I can honestly say that much of the time I find real joy in serving other people. It brings me joy to help make my husband’s life easier by ironing his clothes and packing his lunch, to make good meals for my family, to read to my children, and to make our home clean and cozy. (I feel the same way about serving people outside of my family…it brings me joy to help my friends at church, to play the piano at church, to help my extended family, to take pictures for people, to inspire and teach budding young pianists, and so on and so on. )

And when it’s not so easy to serve (like when I have to get up in the middle of the night with my kids, or when I don’t feel like cooking dinner), I know that God’s grace is there to sustain and help me. I also remind myself that if Jesus, who is God, could cheerfully serve mere people, then I should be gracious enough to serve others. I also try to remember the verse in the Bible where Jesus says that if we serve others, it is as though we are serving Him. Remembering that serving Zoe in the middle of the night is like serving Jesus himself changes my perspective entirely!

So, that’s how I roll…serving my family and the other people around me, powered by God’s grace.

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On a lighter note, I have finally updated my “About Me” page. I’ve added some links, made my bio a little lengthier, and added a new picture ( I was kind of overdue, as the old picture was from July 2008!).