Faithful Femininity on the Field
As a daughter of missionary support workers, the foreign world of cross-cultural mission work has always seemed like home for me. As I grew up and returned back to my passport country to start my life as an adult, the chapter of living on the foreign field seemed to be closed. That is, until I met my husband.He was a ministry major at a Christian college in rural Tennessee, with a desire for vocational ministry in some capacity. Whether it would be pastoring a church in the United States, or moving across oceans to share the Gospel in the jungles of Indonesia, it seemed like if I married this man, my life tapestry could very possibly have some cross-cultural mission work woven into it once more. And spoiler alert, I did marry him.
But the Lord took us a different route than we initially started out on. What I thought was possibly the beginning chapter of my adult life in cross-cultural mission work turned out to be the chapter of my life in learning how to be a faithful wife and mother. Over the years as we continued to grow our family, the idea of cross-cultural mission work continued to linger in our minds, but as a small flame, waiting until the Lord would choose to fan it into fire. As a longtime follower of Christ, I had knowledge on what it meant to love and follow Him, but in my marriage and through my children, the Lord was gracious to reveal my inability to live that knowledge out. In the deep, dark wickedness of my heart, my need for God was laid bare like never before.
Being a wife and mother exposes you to the wretchedness of your own heart, as you sin against your well-meaning husband or your helpless baby, as you find yourself becoming angry when they don’t conform to your selfish desires. My sense of pride and control over my life needed to be reckoned with, and the Lord was gracious to give me trials as gifts on my journey.
As life continued on, the Lord continued to bless us together. I stayed home with our children while my husband worked a great job, and we grew deeply involved with our church family and friends. Honestly, we would have been perfectly satisfied to continue our lives in that way. But, that flame of desiring cross-cultural mission work still lingered, slowly growing through different divine appointments.
As we continued on our pilgrim journey, the Lord began to stir in me a sense of expectant waiting. He was preparing my heart to be open to what He was bringing our family into—fulfilling our part of the Great Commission. While my husband and I had talked about pursuing cross-cultural ministry for years, we had continued to put it off. Whether it was due to needing to finish a degree, or deciding if we should continue in other obligations, the timing was just never right for us.
But God knew, and He was gracious to prepare our hearts to be willing to take the steps when He made us ready. Our lives were steady, and the Lord was continuing to bless our steps; but one night while we were talking, my husband asked me, “What is stopping us from going?” And I replied, “I’ve just been waiting on you.”
In my desire for comfort, it would have been easier to stay in the lives that we had. It would have been simpler. It would have felt safer. But the fact is that Christ has called us to die to ourselves. To die to our desires, to die to our dreams that we have built. We were being faithful where the Lord had us, but the question then was if we would be faithful in where He was leading us. That night we prayed that the Lord would guide us as we took those next steps in faith, and now looking back on it, I can hardly believe all that He has done since then. We sold our home, my husband quit his job, and we moved to a different country to receive pre-field training. Currently, we are awaiting the Lord’s next steps in taking us to the country that we are prayerfully looking to serve within.
There are no such things as extraordinary Christians; there are no superstars. There are only brothers and sisters who are faithful to what Christ has called them to. Truth is, I’m terrified of the journey ahead. But we serve a God who is worthy of praise in every tongue, every tribe, and in every nation. I am weak. I am a coward. But in my weakness, God will glorify Himself. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t need anyone. But He chooses to use weak and broken vessels to bring glory to Himself. He will build His Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. God calls us to be faithful to Him, to be as living sacrifices that honor Him. So what does this mean for us as wives and mothers?
In today’s day and age where truth is relative, we have many opinions on what it means to be a wife and a mother. It is concerning to realize how much the world has dictated our understanding of marriage and motherhood. As believers, it is necessary that we ground our lives in the truth of Scripture, and in that light, we need to define what it means to be a wife and a mother. We are given the gift of being wives to honor and respect our husbands, to help them in life as they pursue Christ in being conformed unto His image. In marriage, our relationship reflects Christ and His bride, an important example to a lost and dying world. In motherhood, we bring glory to God in stewarding our children and raising them up in the knowledge and discipline of the Lord.
Our lives are meant to be a pleasing sacrifice unto the Lord. Many times this means being faithful in the quiet parts of our lives—in our thoughts, in our habits, and in our attitudes. As wives and mothers, we set the temperature of the home, and oftentimes our children and husband are impacted by our subtle or not so subtle temper tantrums. In our fallen human state, we will continue to fail in this God-given task, however, we trust that the Lord will continue to sanctify us through the gifts and trials that He has ordained for us.
With this divine purpose of marriage and motherhood in mind, what does that mean for you, dear reader?
God has ordained for women to be women, some women to be wives, and further yet, all women to be mothers (I’ll explain this later). God has also commanded us to fulfill the Great Commission. As believers, it is our Christian duty to fulfill what we have been called to. But can we be faithful to both? Can you faithfully live as a wife and mother as unto the Lord in your hometown, while faithfully carrying out the Great Commission? Take heart, because, yes, you can. We see in God’s word that God is for God, and He cannot deny Himself, and because of that, we should be faithful to live as God honoring wives and mothers, while also going out into all the earth to share the Gospel. But how do you do that if you are not led to cross-cultural ministry?
The answer is honestly the same for all wives and mothers–– being faithful to the task that God has called you to.
Being faithful to take your thoughts captive as you serve the Lord in serving and loving your husband as his God ordained helpmate. Loving and respecting him in a way that honors the Lord, as God sees the inward heart of man.
Being faithful to sacrificially teach your children to love the Lord, to seek to raise them up as arrows to be sent out into all the earth. Raise them, knowing that they are the Lord’s, and He will use them as He sees fit, even if it is 4,000 miles away from you. Raise them with the Great Commission in mind, and not a great career, a great spouse, or the great American Dream. This is where I believe all women are called to be mothers. Even if the Lord calls you to singleness, or the Lord calls you to barrenness, we, as daughters of the King have been called to be spiritual mothers to each other’s children, to come alongside of our sisters in spurring one another on to good works.
We are called to be faithful in sacrificially caring for the home, and stewarding the gifts that the Lord has given us. Faithful in using our resources, our time, and our money, to share what we have in ministering to those around us. Faithful in being the hands and feet of Christ, as we seek to share His love with the masses. Faithful in holding the rope of whom the Lord has sent into foreign contexts, whether it be through a quick encouraging email or sending a care package; carrying out the Great Commission simply requires being faithful.
So, here, I enter my plea, and further yet, a call to arms.
To my sisters, the wives and mothers within the Church, how is the Lord calling you to be faithful? How is the Lord calling you to take up your cross and follow Him? How is the Lord calling you to live sacrificially so that others may know Him? Is He leading you to sacrificially give of your time, your finances, and your comforts? Better yet, this is the question we must ask: is He worth it? Is He worth leaving your father and mother, your home, and your job? Is He worth the sacrifice of being more than 15 minutes away from your children or grandchildren? Is He worth denying yourself in your great pursuit of the American Dream?
I think you already know the answer. He is. He is worthy of all our lives.
The fact remains that Christ is worthy of being worshipped by every tribe, tongue, and nation. But in many places in the world, He is not worshipped. So why are we not running with urgency toward those who are perishing in their rebellion against God? Why are we content with bringing only a portion of our lives as a sacrifice unto the Lord, rather than our whole being? God is worthy of our praise, but do we truly believe it? Do I truly believe it? The cry of my heart remains: I believe, O God, help my unbelief!