Each of us mothers is created to fill a calling.
First and foremost, we were born to be really good moms. We weren’t born to be mothers who are thin, rich, smart, who drive a lot, buy our kids great clothes, or get them into good colleges. We were born to leave a mark in our world, and usually, that mark is made on our kids and then on others’ lives.
Sometimes we leave our mark because of something we have done for other persons, and other times it happens because we were with that person. We are beings—mother beings. We are human beings but we focus so constantly on the doing of life that we forget how to be.
Our deeper purpose in life flows from a sense that our presence is important to another person. We have something to share with another and sometimes this takes work, and sometimes it means simply being who we are in the company of another.
In addition to fulfilling our purpose as good moms, we are born to do more, in time. At the risk of sounding overly philosophical I would like to assert that we have lost this sense of being because we are afraid of what lies beneath the superficial in us. If we set aside the energy we put into fitness, dieting, trying to be a better mom that the next mom, what is left? we wonder. What we find below the dieting, working, running around in the car and exercising is a deepness that has been undiscovered. The tricky part about discovering our giftedness is that it may be in an area that feels unexpected.
One mother I know does humor therapy workshops for abused women and children. This isn’t her career (she is a nurse-practitioner), and it falls outside of her call as a mom. She has told me repeatedly that she was “born to bring healing through laughter.” She does a great job and women and children come in droves to hear her. The interesting thing about her is that she does not perceive herself as funny. She describes herself as a serious person. When she happened upon her calling to help others laugh, she was substituting for a friend who ran the same workshops.
In telling you this, I’m not trying to get mothers to squeeze one more thing into their day, to jam “solitude” or “living out” a deeper purpose into an already exhausting schedule—it is to help you mothers reprioritize.
DISCOVER YOUR LIFE’S DEEPER PURPOSE
You’ll know you’ve happened upon your deeper purpose when you:
overlook the money you make
the people you impress, or
the length of hours it takes when you are fulfilling it.
Living from your giftedness stirs a deeper passion and a sense that you are somehow “home.” I believe that these gifts are supernatural and stem from the hand of God himself.
Two very important points must be made, though.
• Realizing your unique gifts and using them outside parenting is not more important than being a mother; it is simply different. As women, we are more than mothers and our value comes from being mothers and being women with other gifts. The two are separate and of equal value.
• Thinking about those undiscovered things we’re good at can feel overwhelming to mothers who are simply trying to get through the day doing what must be done.
Why even wonder what we’re good at when we don’t have time to do what’s expect of us already? Isn’t this an exercise in frustration?
No, because each of our gifts doesn’t need to be used at this very moment. The whole point is that often we expend too much time doing too many things that don’t need to be done because we get distracted. We lose sight of our deeper purpose in life—to raise good kids and to use our strengths to better the lives others, over the course of our lifetimes.
Once we decide what matters most, what we’re really here on earth for, then and only then, will we understand our real value as moms and as women.
The very best we can do at any moment is to realize that, as moms, we are needed now and if we are meant to use other gifts to help others, we will be afforded the opportunity when the time comes.
Today’s post is an excerpt from my book, The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers.
