I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I was showered with the love of divorced parents who, like we all are, were fighting their own uphill battles and doing the best they could with what they had to love me and raise me to be what we all want our kids to be – a happy, healthy, well-adjusted good person. And so much of my life, I thought that’s what it was all about… being good.
But I came to realize that I wasn’t really good anyway and I wanted something more for myself than just being good. I wanted to strive for more than what my own flesh would deteriorate every day, by my very nature, my ever-thin goodness, in favor of something better. Good was simply not good enough.
And as I’ve struggled to raise my own kids with meaning and understanding and faith and compassion and, okay, even a push toward goodness, what I hope for them is that they be something more in this world, too. More than right. More than happy. More than good.
Growing up, my friend Jessica’s family had a plaque by their front door with Joshua 24:15 printed on it: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” I thought it was the most beautiful verse. Their household will serve the Lord. Simple. Declarative. Powerful. And I started to believe, somewhere within, that perhaps therein lies the difference between good and so much more than good.
And now, as my own household is made up of so many different faces with hearts in different places, I stumble through this life and ministry in aim of making that true – As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And I wonder how to live in such a way that my household will follow suit, that I, too, can make such a declarative statement on behalf of all those I look after and weave enough truth into their lives to see that even when they are not good…even when they are festering with ugliness and sin has caused moths to eat and rust to destroy, where families fail and choices pile upon them, that they are loved with a Perfect Love, and that they have a place here – that they belong to a household that serves the Lord.
The beautiful serving tray pictured above is one of the {in}courage inspired deals this month and is on sale in the DaySpring online store for $17.99, which is a jaw-dropping price for this very nice, heavy duty, carved metal tray with intricate decorative carvings and a cross, front and center, that sits on my coffee table and reminds me, daily, that serving the Lord is both heavy and beautiful.
I too did not grow up in a Christian home... At 28 I met a neighbor who loved me enough to introduce me to the One who would save me. I had so much to learn though... Once I began to learn, I wanted everything to be different for my children. I put on my wall the same verse, that me and my family would serve the Lord. But it's so hard, to do life, when teenagers have difficult personalities, & it seems I say nothing right...And my 5 year old shows his temper, & I fear as my daughter approaches her teens....
ReplyDeleteOh how I want us all to serve the Lord, above all.....