Training for Super Motherhood...

My job is preparing me for marriage and family.  

What?  Don't believe me?  

Meet my child the copy machine.  When it has a problem, here I come to save the day!  When it needs to be fed it beeps (cries) until I add paper.  It needs regular naps during the day.  And let me tell you, it does not wake up happy.

My second child is the phone.  It's a bit more like a toddler; wining until it gets my attention, constantly at my side like a little one clinging to my pant leg, making it very difficult to go to the bathroom.  Sometimes when I give it what it wants I'm rewarded with a pleasant response, a kind voice, an easily answered request, but others, well, I get to deal with an all out fit that makes me want to go cry in a corner.

Then there are the salesmen.  In a way they are like a spouse: big ideas, grand plans, and in desperate need of the tiny details to be taken care of.  The little things are my job; travel plans, stamping envelopes, printing, making copies, getting coffee, water, making reservations…they couldn't do their job if I wasn't doing mine, or at least it would be very hard.  

A smile is part of the job, cleaning up after others is what I do, and often, amidst the stress, I tell myself it's just practice for marriage and kids.  But sometimes that makes me forget to focus on the job at hand, to be thankful for what I have right now and not what I'm hoping for in the future.  Don't get me wrong, hope is wonderful, hope gets me through the day, the problem comes when I focus only on the future and not on doing my best and finding joy in the present.  

It can be hard to find sometimes, honestly, the search can feel a bit like an impossible Where's Waldo mission, but there is joy even in the stress and frustration.  Because in reality, my current circumstances aren't some purgatory-hunger games-torture-training session meant to prepare me to be a glorious super mom/wife, it's part of my sanctification process…which, sometimes can be sort of like a purgatory-hunger games-torture training session.  

More than that, there is something to look forward to, something way better and way more believable than me becoming Supermom (boots included, but no capes…if you've seen the Incredibles, you'll understand), because my sanctification process is preparing me for eternity.  

"Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine." Leviticus 20:26

The holy is in the hardship, and the reward at the end is relationship, unhindered, with the bridegroom Who poured himself  out for His bride.