What's So Ordinary?

"I don't know how you do it."
"You must be the most patient woman in the world."
"You must be so organized."
"You are one special woman."

I hear it all the time, often immediately following the frequently uttered, "Wow, you've sure got your hands full." Yes, I do, I think to myself, trying to remember to smile and nod in agreement. "It's a good full", I often respond.

When I hear "You must be busy all the time!", I nod and reply "Yep, it's a good busy", because it is. Life with many children is busy, even when nothing is going on, but it's a good busy, a busy I wouldn't trade for anything.

The thing is, I'm not the most patient woman in the world. I'm so far from the most organized woman in the world that it really isn't funny. Patience and organization are things I am always working on. I'm really not even that special, not any more than any other mother who tries, by the grace of God, to do right by her children.

I'm really quite ordinary.

I try, I fail, and I get up and try again the next day. I have ideals I don't always live up to, dreams I may never live out, and goals I may never reach, but I keep on keepin' on because it's really all there is to do.

I am a Mother.

I have children who wake up every day needing whatever it is I have to give, and then some. Every day they need guidance and direction. Sometimes they need their questions answered and sometimes they need to be pointed in the direction of finding the answers themselves. Sometimes they need help with doing something new or something hard, and sometimes they need further instructions and further encouragement in learning to do it themselves.

I have a job to do-

"Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 2:26

"And these words, which I command thee this day,

shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,

and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house,

and when thou walkest by the way,

and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."
Deuteronomy 6:6-7

I don't feel qualified to do such a big job, remember I'm just an ordinary mom?

That is where He comes in.

He is my strength when I am weak

(weak in patience, weak in joy, weak in physical pain)

He is the treasure that I seek

("Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually."

1 Chronicles 16:11)

He is my all in all, and He is not ordinary.

He is extraordinary.