I recently heard a young woman confess that she struggles with not being able to “use her gifts” because she is primarily at home, caring for small children. She is not alone in her struggle. I can remember occasionally battling similar thoughts in those early years of nursing infants, changing diapers and child training, and I know other women have as well.
It’s easy for us to look around and see “everyone else” playing a productive and meaningful part in the church’s mission and feel like we are the “only one” languishing on the sidelines.
Now, it is good and right for us to want to invest the gifts and talents God has bestowed on us for the good of the church; but when we view homemaking as a hindrance to using our gifts, I think we’re missing a vitally important truth.
You see, the gifts God has given to each of us are not only for the “common good” (1 Cor. 12:7) of those outside our family, but they are first and foremost for the good of those within our family. In fact, I would argue that there is no place where our gifts and skills should be more heartily put to use than with the family God has given to our charge.
Are you creative and artistic? Then make your house a fun and beautiful place to be. Are you organized and methodical? Then apply your skill in the management of your home. Are you a skilled counselor? Then be the woman of understanding who draws out the “deep waters” of your family member’s hearts (Prov. 20:5). Can you sing? Then fill your home with music. Whatever gift you have been given or skill you have acquired turn around and invest it in your home.
Be like Susanna Wesley, “the incomparably brilliant and well-educated mother of sons who shook two continents for God” who wrote: “I am content to fill a little space if God be glorified” (Dorothy Patterson, "The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective").
Let us be content to use our gifts, energies, talents and skills for the good of our family to the glory of God.
