Don’t look to what is seen…it’s working for you an eternal weight of glory.” Because this is true regarding all our suffering as mothers, whether our pain is caused by infertility or a child’s illness, “we do not lose heart” ( 2 Cor. I can hear his voice preaching 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 to my soul as I chopped vegetables for dinner, reminding me that all of our misery on the path of obedience is meaningful: “It’s doing something…Of course you can’t see what it’s doing. In a particularly difficult season, I would play “Though You Slay Me – Shane and Shane featuring John Piper” on repeat in my kitchen, memorizing Piper’s words tucked into this song. Even though I felt surprised by an emergency C-section and newborn feeding issues, and later by my children’s serious medical diagnoses, it was reassuring to know that the burden of suffering that we carry as mothers who love and serve our children in a fallen world isn’t a surprise to God.
Piper titled his 2001 Mother’s Day sermon “To Be a Mother Is a Call to Suffer.” I was in my early twenties when I gave my mom a CD copy of this message, and the title intrigued me but when I became a mother, the biblical truth it points to became a great comfort to me. Not only does God offer us future hope his Word also sustains us in our suffering. That reality would be devastating apart from God’s promise that our pain as his children will not be wasted. The first is that we will suffer as mothers. God has used pastor and theologian John Piper to teach me three truths related to motherhood and suffering that have given me great hope in my sorrow.
0 kommentar(er)
