Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

The Mommy Action Figure

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Last night at BSF, our teaching leader was lecturing on Matthew 8. In that chapter, we see a man with leprosy, a Gentile military leader, and Peter’s mother-in-law all taking action that demonstrates their faith in Jesus. Our leader gave an illustration about a new line of religious action figures (including a talking Jesus doll) that will be sold at Wal-mart. (Click here for the news story.) She talked about the fact that if our lives have been changed by God, if we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ, our actions will prove that we have put our faith in Jesus as our Redeemer. In the second half of Matthew 8, we see that Jesus is the Ruler of the universe–over nature and demons–and that our faith in action should reflect this truth as well.

At the end of the lecture, she asked us, “If they made an action figure out of you, what would it look like? What would it say and do?” Would my action figure reflect my hope in Jesus as my Redeemer and the Ruler of the universe? Or would it reflect my desire to glorify myself and hang on tightly to my rule over my life (and the lives of as many other people as possible)??

The mental image that comes to mind when I think about an action figure of myself is not a pretty one. She would be dressed in sweats but never actually make it to the gym. She would be loud, speaking mostly in commands and exasperated rebukes. When you pulled the string in her back, you would hear, “Give that back to your brother! Stop whining! Do you need to go potty?? Go get in the car RIGHT NOW–we’re late!!!” She would run around a lot and run out of battery power frequently. And by the time the Daddy action figure got home from work, her head has exploded and you have to glue her ears back on so she can listen to how his day was. She would come with a SwifferVac (my new favorite toy!), laundry basket, and diaper bag sold separately.

I’m trying to be funny, but it was seriously a great question to get me thinking about how my actions reflect where I’m placing my hope. Is my hope in my stuff, my home, my financial security, my husband’s job, and how well my kids turn out in the eyes of the world? Am I busy about the work of all of those things? Or is my hope in Jesus alone as my Redeemer and the Ruler over all aspects of my life? Am I busy about the work that He gives me which has eternal value? Is my effort as a wife, mom and homemaker seeking to glorify myself by having nice things and a family that looks happy from the outside? Or am I seeking to glorify God alone by humbly serving my husband and children and preaching the Gospel to them with my words and actions? As always, these are some tough and very convicting questions.

And please, don’t buy my kids a talking Jesus doll for Christmas.

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Decreasing, the application part

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Several years ago (before kids), a friend who had children made a comment to me about how I wouldn’t truly realize how selfish I am until I had kids. I remember being a little offended at the time, thinking she was wrong, and that I had a pretty good idea about how selfish I really was. It may not be true of everyone, but in my life, my friend was right. Before kids, I could usually make things work out the way I wanted them to. There was some sacrifice involved in marriage, but I am an excellent manipulator and a skilled arguer, so I could usually get my husband to come around to my way of thinking. But I’ve met my match when it comes to my kids. They are not concerned at all with what I want. So one of the toughest parts about being a mom for me is that multiple times a day, I have to die to my own desires. Sometimes it is downright painful. And too often I start to resent it.

This was definitely true during the last half of October. Here’s a recap . . . October 18, Will started running a fever. There were 8 days until my birthday, and I always have a sick kid on my birthday, so I was actually glad for my kids to catch the bug then so they could be healthy in time to give me a happy, carefree birthday. After Will had been sick for 4 days, Christopher caught it. By this point, I was starting to lose patience with being at home, and now I had two sick children. Christopher’s virus was short-lived, but Will’s dragged on for over a week.

When I woke up on the morning of my birthday, facing my 8th day of being confined at home with a sick child, I prayed that God would keep me from self-pity, from feeling that I deserved to have a fabulous day just because it was my birthday. I even gave this line to a friend who called that morning to wish me happy birthday and was appropriately sympathetic about Will still being sick.  I thought, “Oh, no, I don’t need your sympathy. I’m super-spiritual mom, queen of unselfishness, and I certainly don’t need to be celebrated on the day I graced the world with my presence.”

As it turned out, the day was a disaster. A mere twenty minutes after I got off the phone with my friend, both boys and I were crying. Later in the day I yelled at Christopher, “Why are you acting like this?!? Are you just trying to make sure I don’t have a good birthday?!?” And anyone else who called me that day got a hefty dose of self-pity and requests for major amounts of sympathy. (But, for the record, my birthday got a lot better after Noel got home from work.)

The boys were healthy for a day and a half, and then on Sunday afternoon, Christopher woke up from his nap with a temperature of 102. I saw all my plans for the week (including Halloween) crumble, along with any bit of emotional stability I had left. I still feel guilty about how I was much more concerned about myself that afternoon than I was about my sick child. I hit an all-new low at the pediatrician’s office the next afternoon when he ruled out anything we could get an antibiotic for and mentioned that it could be mono. (Thankfully, it wasn’t, and he was even better in time to enjoy Halloween.)

Why have I gone on and on about these two weeks of my kids being sick? Because the whole episode has shown me how difficult it is for me to muster the self-denial and unselfishness that motherhood requires. I am required to serve again and again without much gratitude in return. My needs and wants are trumped daily by my kids’ needs. I spend hours trying to teach them to obey, and then struggle to not take it as a personal offense when they do the opposite of what I’ve taught them. (A friend I was talking to on the phone got to overhear this comment last week: “Do you think it is a good idea to hit your brother in the face with a shoe? Really, that should be obvious.”)

One reason all of this is so difficult is that it brings me face-to-face with my sin. I can’t help but notice my selfish reaction to my kids being sick. I can’t ignore the irony when I am yelling at Christopher, “You need to get some self-control RIGHT NOW!!!!” I hardly ever had to apologize to my co-workers, but I have to seek my kids’ forgiveness on a regular basis.

The only answer I can think of is to ask God to change my heart so that I desire His glory more than my own. To pray that God would protect my kids from all my mistakes and that their lives would glorify Him, even if they don’t always make me look good. To saturate myself in God’s Word so that I will become more like Christ, who “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6-7). Because I cannot muster the strength to fight my selfish desires on my own. If I am ever going to be able to put my kids ahead of myself not only in action, but also thought and motive, it will be by God’s grace alone.

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Decreasing

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It has been a long time since I’ve posted, in part because there are lots of different ideas wrestling around in my head and I’ve had trouble organizing them into coherence. I’ve also been dealing with sick children for what seems like ages, and so I’ve spent quite a bit of time feeling restless, exhausted, frustrated and full of self-pity–none of which are all that conducive to spiritual growth for me. I’m so thankful to be doing BSF, which requires me to spend time in the Word even when I want to forget it.

Last week when Christopher was feeling especially crummy, he asked me, “What is God doing to me?” I don’t know the answer for Christopher, but I know what God is doing to me–He is teaching me that I need to be decreasing so that He may increase. This idea came to me in my BSF notes a couple of weeks ago, and it needs some context, so let me back up a little.

Apparently, I am quite forgettable, and it drives me nuts. Countless people meet me, sometimes more than once, and then don’t remember me at all the next time they see me. There was one woman I knew who met me about 5 times (including one time she was in my home!) before she remembered that she knew me. But this idea of myself decreasing so that God may increase means that when people meet me and interact with me, they see Christ. It is not my reputation that increases, but God’s glory.

This is a really difficult one for me. When I meet people, I’d much rather they think how friendly or witty I am, how well-behaved my children are, or maybe even how nice I look. I want them to think I’m somebody worth knowing and to want to spend more time with me (or at least remember my name next week). If I’m going to point people to Christ, then I’d have to stop thinking about how memorable I am, how well-liked I am, how trendy my clothes are (or aren’t). And if my words and actions are those that would always bring glory to God, I could be seen as weird.

I think an idea that is closely tied to this is something our BSF teaching leader talked about last week: our citizenship in the kingdom of Heaven trumping our citizenship as Americans. (See Ephesians 2:19 and Philippians 3:20 if you’re not sure what I mean by citizenship in the kingdom of Heaven.) She said that kingdom citizens have no use for earthly gain, but only fight for eternal gain (that is, wanting others to see Jesus Christ). She also encouraged us to ask ourselves: Do my attitudes better reflect my heavenly citizenship or my American citizenship? Have I renounced the things of this world? Is Jesus more valuable to me than any earthly thing?

Honestly, I’d like to think I can hold on to earthly gain as long as Jesus is in the mix somewhere. That I don’t have to actually renounce the attitudes and priorities of our culture as long as I’m not as worldly as the person next door. That it is okay to store up earthly treasures for myself as long as I tithe.

But I suspect that if Jesus truly was more valuable to me than any earthly thing, those earthly things would be utterly without value to me. And I would boldly proclaim Christ to others without any thought of how they would remember me but with only the hope that they would remember Jesus. I would give myself daily in sacrificial service to my husband and kids because it isn’t me that is important. And I would see that God truly meets all my needs in the glorious riches of Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).

I’ve got a long way to go, and I’m not 100% certain I want to take the journey. But I’m going to keep praying that God will change my heart to desire Him more than any other thing, that He would cause me to decrease so that He may increase, and that He would give me eyes to see how truly worthless are the things I’m tempted to chase after.

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Worship

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Last week at BSF, our teaching leader talked about how God created every human to worship. Every day, all of us are worshiping something–either the God of the Bible or someone/something else (which is idolatry). She asked us a couple of questions: Who or what do you worship? And what would others who observe you say that you worship?

The first question is one that I’ve thought about before, but the second one really got me thinking about my kids. I spend about 10 hours every day being observed by my two little munchkins. Although they are too young to articulate it, I wonder what they would say about my worship if they could. Would they say Mommy worships the things of this world, or the one true God? Do they see me chasing after the approval of others and materialistic things? Or do they see me in constant communion with my Savior? Am I worshiping myself, my desires, my comfort? Or I am making daily sacrifices to live a life that brings glory to God? I’m afraid the answers are very convicting. And seeing it through the eyes of my kids, I know that the object of my worship is not only impacting my spiritual life, but my kids’ understanding of a God-honoring life as well.

A few more things about my Grandpa’s passing (see post below) . . . spending time sharing stories and celebrating his life last week left me feeling so thankful for his legacy of faith in our family. I found out that the Scripture passage he was reading when he died was Psalm 145. The psalmist is praising God for His wonderful works and telling others of God’s greatness and majesty. I especially like verses 4-5:

4 One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

God has given us all the responsibility to tell the next generation about Him. My Grandpa certainly did his part. I hope that someday my kids and grandkids will say the same about me. And verse 5 gives me the key: I must be constantly meditating on God’s wondrous works, the foremost of which would be the work of Christ on the cross. If I am, my praise and thanks will overflow with a contagious joy that will point my kids to God. It is a lofty goal, for sure, but Grandpa showed me it can be done.

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