June 1, 2009 Just a ‘Stay-At-Home’ Mom!

By
Carolyn Schoenborn
6/1/2009

Why do you exist? And, where and how do you fulfill your unique purpose? When helping people think about these two fundamental questions of life, I also ask a third question: Where do you spend 60-70% of your waking day? That third question is important! Where you spend the majority of your day is where you live out the majority of your existence and where you are called to do and fulfill your unique purpose! It is there in the heart of your fields of work that the core of your personal ministry resides!

In Christ, we have been saved for “Good Works.” (See Ephesians 2:8-10.) These are not works meant for God or for your salvation. Rather, they are God’s gifts and activity and involvement THROUGH YOU AND ME back to the world. These are the daily activities we encounter in our fields of work where, by faith, we are called to serve and let God meet the needs of our neighbor – through US! These deeds of work done in faith (the only way any deed can be considered “good” in God’s eyes) are intended to be fulfilled in our unique situation in history and the society and the work in which we find ourselves.  Furthermore, by responding to God’s call to serve him by serving other people in the various arenas and relationships in our fields of work, we allow God to sanctify us and empty us so that Christ can be all in all.

On our way to California to help operate a Life Journey Ministries display booth at a convention, my husband and I stayed over night at the home of a good friend. She is an amazing musician who has been given a ministry of music that brings worship alive. Yet when I asked her what she was doing these days she simply said, “Oh, I’m just a stay-at-home Mom.” So, what is the latest sanctifying challenge for this stay-at-home mom? It is being mother to her family as well as to a foreign exchange student from South Korea.

“How is it going?” I asked.
“It is some of the toughest and most emotional work I have ever had to do!” she said.

Why? The heart of the challenge is because of the unbelievable differences in cultural and faith values between America and South Korea. This commitment to understand one another and learn to work together out of an attitude of respect for one another’s values has been a huge challenge. The tension reached such a pitch that my friend considered whether it might be time for the exchange student to live with another family. Shockingly, she learned that up to 50% of all foreign exchange students are transferred to different families while in the exchange student program because this challenge to live together as “family” is so difficult. But my friend and her family are deeply committed Christians and they have taken seriously their call and commitment to both the ministry and message of reconciliation. And so they are committed to working this through to the end.

As I sat and listened to my friend, I realized that she and her family were being much more than gracious hosts. They were planting the seeds of international understanding and reconciliation! And, she was doing it by “just being a stay-at-home mom!”

When we reached the convention, I was visiting at the dinner table with a gentlemen who was the Director of the Information Technology department for his company. They developed computer software for the medical industry. We began to talk about God calling us to do personal ministry in and through our fields of work.
He said, “Oh! I pray daily for my people. They all know I am a Christian and they frequently come to me when they need understanding and prayer.”
“So what do your people usually ask you to pray for the most?”
“Oh, usually it is something about their personal lives.”

As we visited, I pushed him just a little more on how he fulfilled his “ministry” as a Director of the IT Department. I asked, “So, what is the biggest challenge or need that people experience in your department and line of work?”

“Oh!” he said. “Constant change! Nothing stays the same. Everything is always changing. It is like living in a world always on the edge of chaos.”
“Wow! So what seems to be the greatest need that surfaces for your department and the individuals within it out of this life of constant change?”
“Peace!” he replied. “My people need to experience some type of peace so they can keep up with and respond to and meet the challenges that constant change brings.”
“Peace! That is an interesting word to use in relationship to work. As the Department manager, how do you serve by working to bring concrete peace – and especially Christ’s peace – to the people with whom you work?”

I believe the question caught him by surprise. “I don’t know!” he said. He then thought for a while and he said, “I think I can work to help alleviate the fear – the fear of losing their jobs or being demoted if they make a mistake; the fear of being stabbed in the back; the fear of failure.” The list of options and ideas and conversation went on. And, of course, he prayed for each person and his department as a whole on a daily bases! In short, he fulfilled his function as part of the Priesthood of Believers called to be God’s intermediary in the world – especially in his place and field of work!

Across from our display table was a man whose son had just been killed in Iraq. His funeral had been just two weeks before the convention. We visited and he shared the story. He later sent me a DVD of the two funerals held for his son – one in Iraq by members of his son’s platoon; and the other in the church in his hometown in California. As I watched the video I was moved to tears – even though I had never met this young soldier and had visited only once with his father. I was struck by how this soldier’s faith permeated every segment of his life. I was amazed by how many lives he had touched and the attitudes he impacted.

I was especially touched by the closing comment given by one of the soldiers in Iraq. He spoke of how this young soldier’s life impacted the platoon’s ability to “serve” (not fight or defeat, but to serve) the people in the city of Somalia. That simple comment stretched my understanding even more of what vocational ministry is all about. Even as a soldier called to defend - and kill - in order to preserve and protect, he defined his work as serving others in need. Through stories of his humility, determination, dedication, compassion, encouragement and many other characteristics that had been formed and defined by his faith, this young soldier brought glory to God. I was struck by how this young man performed the works God had called him to do through faith in a way defined by God.

Why do you exist? Where and how do you fulfill your unique, God-given purpose in life? Well, it may be as a soldier who may even have to pay the ultimate sacrifice of dying in service to one’s country and to help a city in a foreign land. It may be in the chaotic and highly competitive world of high-tech. It may be “just as a stay-at-home mom.” So often we define what we do with 60-70% of our waking hours in largely self-serving actions or rewards that have a tendency to be greatest for ourselves. We seldom see this time of holy vocation in the larger scope of our unique time and situation in history, and the society in which we find ourselves. When we understand that God has prepared specific “good works” for us to do that are ultimately intricate and critical pieces of the larger situation in history and society in which we find ourselves, it enlarges our calling and our understanding beyond our strength. And, it is when something is finally beyond our strength that we start to truly live by faith in and through the presence and power and activity of the Spirit of God! It is there that “just being a stay-at-home mom” ties into God’s redemptive work of the world!