“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10
No one told me that when I became a mom, I’d develop super powers. Superman may fly and see through walls, but can he do laundry, cook dinner, help with fourth grade homework, load the dishwasher, pay bills, pack the bags for other people’s activities the next day, and conduct a phone call all at the same time (#truestory)? Can he find all manner of lost items after people in the home are adamant that they’ve “looked everywhere and it just isn’t here, mom”?
And if you’re a mama you know that we all have one more power up our sleeve. Invisibility. This super skill is thrust upon us when the babes are born, and is only voided when we step into a bathroom – but that’s another post.
I longed to be a mom for many years before that desire of my heart was granted. And in all that time dreaming of motherhood, I never once pined to be invisible. That reality wasn’t on my radar.
Maybe that’s because until I became a mom, I’d not truly seen the moms in my life. I didn’t notice before I became one that mamas are often doing all the things to sustain all the life for all the humans under the roof – and those humans are so pleased at being able to actually live that they don’t see the person hustling to make it all happen.
Whether married or any variety of single, working outside or inside the home, parent to one or seven, being unnoticed as you pour all you have into others is exhausting. The days are long and let’s face it. The reward isn’t immediate. Encouragement can be non-existent and in the void, it is easy to spiral into the kind of loneliness that only invisibility can cultivate.
In those hard, rough moments when not really being seen – unless one of the loves of your life needs something – a destructive thought chain can blossom. We can fall prey to lies that no one cares. That what we’re doing doesn’t matter because no one cares.
It is easy to convince ourselves that we’re throwing away our life for people who will never notice and for whom it will never make a difference. And we can begin to question our own value, purpose, and worth.
But you know what? We’re not as gifted in the super power department as we mamas would like to think. We were created by a God who loves us too much to not see us.
He poured into us, his “workmanship,” and just like those people who don’t see us are never invisible to their mamas, we are not invisible to God.
Not only does he see us, he loves us enough to have created us with a purpose. Yes, a purpose. And that purpose in Christ Jesus may be allowing a short human to use your shirttail as a Kleenex or picking up someone else’s shoes for the four thousandth time that day.
The things that seem small – and invisible – to us are what God sees, what he loves, and what he created us to do.
So in those days when we feel unnoticed, unnecessary, and undervalued, let’s not forget that there is a really big God who is good at being very well aware of the really small things he gave us to do. He sees us – snot covered shirts and all – and is already whispering, “well done.”
