Mothers, Carry Your Cross: Part 3

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses is life for my sake will save it" Luke 9:23-24.

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In part 1 and 2, I looked at what it means to carry our cross by loving our children. In this last part, I want to look at carrying our cross by being “busy at home” as it talks about in Titus 2.

Let me just start out by saying I feel there is a misconception about what it means to “busy at home”. Just because a woman is a stay-at-home mom, does not automatically mean she is “busy at home”. It must be purposeful. Many of the “working moms” I know are much more “busy at home” than some “stay-at-home” moms I’ve met!

So let’s just clear up that it’s not just about staying at home or working outside the home. It’s about your actions at home.

“We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.” 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12

Being “busy at home” is so much more than just being present in your home. You can be at home, yet be busy with idleness…on the phone, on the internet or busy with hobbies that take you away from your God-given household duties.

A few weeks ago, I was convicted about this. God took me to Proverbs 31:27, which says, “She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.” I realized that I had been wasting time, being idle, when I needed to keep my eye more watchful over my household.

The phone, internet and personal hobbies, are not bad things and can be used to bring God glory, love your family and encourage others, but I was not doing any of those things. I was simply wasting time…precious time…that I could have been using to bless Ryan or to get ahead on housework, laundry or cooking. I could have been taking that time to think of ways to reinforce lessons we’re trying to teach the boys. Most importantly, I could have been spending that time with the Lord.

I can’t get that time I wasted back, but I have decided to make changes to my life in order to be more “busy at home” from now on. Many Bible versions translate those words into “homemaker”. I like that word too, because as wives and as managers of our homes, we are always making our home into something. I want to use my time to make our home a place where God is the center, my husband feels he is honored and loved above anyone else (except the Lord), where our family is what we focus our time on, where peace reigns, where time is well-spent and where Eternity is always on our mind.

I want to busy myself with those matters of the home, serving my family like Christ who,

“being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:5-8