The alarm goes off early Sunday morning. Jason has already left for work. I hop out of bed, take a shower, and go down to turn on the coffee. My little ones only sleep in on Sundays. Go figure. I wake them up and we eat breakfast. After that we get dressed. As I look at the clock I realize we are an HOUR early! Good! So I set them in front of some cartoons and go upstairs to read my devotions. After I sip my coffee, read, and pray, I look at the clock. Now we are fifteen minutes LATE?!
We rush to get our shoes.
Then I rush to get everyone in the car.
And we rush to church.
Finally, the little ones and I rush in….I settle myself in the chair and sigh. We are late, but we are here.
Guilt and Overwhelm
As a mother of little ones, I feel two extremes when I am serving in church:
not only guilt (that I am not doing enough)
overwhelmed (when I do too much).
When it comes to serving in church, I have never been able to say “no.” Actually, I can remember the first time I told a pastor “no” I can’t do something. When I was fifteen I was supposed to play the piano in the morning worship service. After being asked to play a certain hymn on the piano that I couldn’t play I sat right there in the front pew before church. At this instance, my dad looked over at me and said, “You can say ‘no,’ Sarah.”
So I did. Subsequently, I felt horrible. Maybe a little free….but mostly
guilty.
After I had my first son, I still was saying “yes” to quite a bit of ministry activities. However, by the time I had my third, I realized I couldn’t keep saying yes. That’s when I started saying no. When I said I had to quit, I felt free. But I still felt guilty…like I was letting people down.
As a result, I found myself stuck between the guilt of not serving and the overwhelmed feelings when I did serve.
Serving with Little Ones
In short, when you are in a season of life when serving in a lot of areas is just physically, emotionally, and spiritually impossible there are STILL avenues in which you can serve!
Here are just a few ideas that I’ve found to serve when you are a mother of little ones:
1. Send cards and notes.
2. Have an in-home Bible study.
3. Cook a meal.
4. Participate in the Shoe Box ministry. – Check out their site here.
5. Offer to babysit.
6. Send a care package to a college student.
7. Buy a special gift for someone.
8. Give to a missionary/mission organization.
9. Be a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend to your family.
10. Pray!
What kind of ministry ideas do YOU have? I’d love to hear. Leave a comment below with one!
Honest Moments are part of a series I do with Keri over at Living in this Season.
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Sarah E. Frazer is a writer and Bible study mentor at sarahefrazer.com. She is the wife of Jason and mother of five who all serve as full-time missionaries in Honduras. Her passion is to encourage women to fall in love with the Bible. Sarah is the author of several Bible study resources for women. She shares tools for deep-rooted Bible study at sarahefrazer.com. Follow her on Instagram (http://www.instagram.com/sarah_e_frazer) and join her free prayer challenge at sarahefrazer.com/prayer
