Here I go again, over thinking my response to a book, taking forever to post my thoughts.
Part of my problem is that I want to get it right. All the emotions that I feel over The Missional Mom – and there is a lot to sort through – I’m afraid to write anything. So I’m just going to jump in and hit publish. Forgive me if this is rather steam of conscienceness. I can’t write this any other way. . .
The Missional Mom (Living with Purpose at Home and in the World) by Helen Lee is a book I’ve been looking to read for a long time. I’ve been hungry for the message found in these pages years before Lee wrote her book.
My mothering right now is in a funny place. My children need me; they don’t need me. It’s an odd place to be. My eldest will be 13 years old this summer. My youngest almost six; she’s getting good at making her own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There is still much to do here, but the hard work of caring for little babies and toddlers is over.
For a long time, I’ve looked at our days together, our homeschooling too, and wondered if there was something more I could be doing. And by more I mean doing for others in a meaningful way, things I can involve my children in as well, because I don’t want them growing up thinking being a Christian is mainly about going to church twice a week, AWANA club and saying grace at meals.
In all honesty, a lot of my Christian faith has taken on a ho-hum routine to it these past years and it’s a scary place to be. I never want to think of my faith in the Lord as boring or routine, but that’s what I’ve let it become. I know that’s my problem, not His lacking or unfaithfulness, but me being stuck in a spiritual rut.
Is any of this making any sense? Does anyone relate to what I’m saying? I’ve been a Christian for a long time and I know the correct answers for Sunday School. I can play the game.
Then I come up against a book like The Missional Mom and it makes me want to find my way back to a time when my faith was exciting and I did things. You know, those crazy things you would do because you just had to make your belief known to others around you no matter how crazy it made you look? Or you would go places and do things because you knew it mattered in the Kingdom of God?
I read The Missional Mom and it made me want to go places and do things again for the Lord. Of course, now I need get to do these things as a mom because that’s who I am and how can I leave my kids out when they need to understand Christianity beyond AWANA?
I want to be a mom who does exciting work for the Lord.
Is that bad, wanting the exciting? Life as a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom has a lot of mundane to it, don’t you think? But how would we recognize the wow if we didn’t have the dull? One of the things I appreciated about the book are all the mentions Lee gives to her own homeschooling and of other moms who successfully combined homeschooling and some sort of ministry.
Those are the moms I want to go back and re-read. If she can do it, why can’t I?
Don’t you love it when a book moves you to change?
Part 2 : Yet more thoughts on how this book has impacted my life, especially my approach to how I spend my time online.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of The Missional Mom from the publisher in exchange for a review.
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I look forward to part 2. This is a book that would interest me as well. We have a mission as moms who educate their children at home, but there is a challenge to extend that mission outside the walls of our home. I understand the conflict, but have no answers. I have been challenged to always be looking for ways daily that I can minister in the little ways as well as be prepared with an answer when God calls me to speak.
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Children learn by example. You have an extremely approachable way to you (I am honored to know this woman in real life!). You are open to every one’s ideas and see the good in all.
For me, my calling, if you could call it that, is educating well people about what chronically ill people are really like, and also comforting the chronically ill. Every day is a chance to make a difference even if we just touch one person’s life.
Both of us need to let our children see us “in action”. You ask a tough question. Forget school and take them to the grocery store or the post office maybe?
I am typing one-handed…holding our littlest blessing. i am intrigued by the book. i think what Emily says about children learning from our example is part of the answer…when our children see us allowing God to break our hearts for Him, and we take the time to share that brokenness…in whatever area He calls us to with our children, what may seem small, may be right where he wants us. He is the one who magnifies what we give….it is too easy for me to look at what others are doing….and then miss what HE is doing. So, i am focusing more on sharing to my kids what he lays on my heart, and listening to what they tell me He is placing in their hearts…and that becomes the mission in itself for me….to me keeping my focus on Him and my ears on Him is the key….where did you get the book?
ps….i like your unschool post, too.