Recently in a Facebook group I am a part of, I saw a young mom ask for help. She said she was battling with laziness and needed encouragement and truth to be spoken into her life. She could no longer use holding her sleeping baby as an excuse and needed to get some things done.
Cue the “just hold your baby. They don’t stay little” comments.
It’s true. They grow up fast.
But can I gingerly tread out on this social media thin ice and say something with a hesitant catch in my voice?
Yes hold your baby. There is a time to hold your baby. But sometimes we need to do the dishes or cook our families dinner or do some laundry. We do fellow moms no favors by making one another feel guilty for NOT holding our babies 24 hours a day. I say this as a bio and foster mom of eight tiny babies over the years. Eight sweet and precious little ones who needed to be held to bond and learn to attach and feel safe.
Holding that wee babe is holy work. And so is serving my family and making our home a haven and laying my head down on the pillow for a (solo) nap, realizing that I am a limited creature made from the dust and I, unlike our great God, grow tired and weary and cannot be the savior of my family.
God has done so much sanctifying work in my life through the mundane and endless tasks of housework. Laundry piles that seem to breed. A kitchen that stays clean for a grand total of 10 minutes. Stomachs that endlessly need more meals planned and shopped for and prepared. He continues to form that inherently lazy part of my humanity through this work even as He uses it to bless my family.
Motherhood is an incredible lifegiving work. All of it. You are not a bad mom, wasting the fleeting days with your baby, if you put them down to work. And sometimes you need to.
Keep listening to the Holy Spirit. You are not alone.