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Redefining Beauty: Peanut Butter is the New Black

Updated: Mar 5, 2021


 

I like to joke with my four little boys that there's "At Home Mommy" and "Left the House Mommy." She looks like two very different people. At Home Mommy is wearing the mismatched ensemble that she slept in. She hasn't showered, she's wearing her semi-broken glasses, she has no make-up on (except that which is smeared under her eyes from the day before) and her hair is yanked back in whatever crazy formation that will keep it out of the way of jammy hands, scuzzy dishes, garden mud, and toilet water. If "At Home Mommy" makes any move towards improving her disheveled appearance, even the littlest of her boys will instantly ask, "Are you leaving??!" Because they know. Mommy doesn't look decent unless she has to go in public.



Most of our lives are spent living in the mundane

In public, "Left the House Mommy" will have combed her hair, she may have done a fancy braid or put on some jewelry. She'll have buffed out her wrinkles with some Bare Minerals and her outfit will be on point. "At Home Mommy" actually really enjoys fashion and beauty, photography and social interactions, but she's come to realize that the majority of her life is spent inside the four walls of her home with the people that matter the most to her. "Left the House Mommy" is adept at public speaking, she has a Masters Degree in teaching English as a Second Language and she's lived overseas as a missionary. She loves to dance and paint and travel. She's delighted to be at a party or to minister alongside her husband at church.  But that's not where she lives. Those are the mountaintop places, the places she's blessed to occasionally go, where she is seen and known to the crowd.  But the bulk of her time is spent at home, training little souls to love Jesus, clean their rooms, change their underwear and have deep, respectable character. This is called the mundane. This is where we spend most of our lives. This is where our character and our faith matter the most.

Do we have Sunday faith that gets set aside during stress, traffic, dishes or discipline?

"At Home Mommy" and "Left the House Mommy" may look a bit different, but her primary concern is that her character and conduct is the same. I want my boys to say of me that I loved God just as fervently through the simple routines of our lives as I did from any podium or stage. I don't want them to see a Sunday faith that was put aside through my week. When I'm stressed or tired or squeezed, what will they see? I want them to see Jesus when I'm in a disagreement with Daddy. I want them to see Jesus when I get cut off in traffic. I want them to see Jesus when I get devastating news. I want them to see Jesus when they've been so loud and naughty and raucous that I want to scream and cry and dissolve. But I don't. And instead I respond with patience, compassion and judiciousness. I want them to see Jesus in the mundane. I want Him to permeate all the regular, ordinary moments and tasks of my life.



Colossians 3:23 "Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people."

How often have I angrily scrubbed at bowls with glued-on cereal, inconsiderately left at the bottom of the sink for me by a hoard of little boys or, heaven forbid, their father?! Don't they know I have better things to do with my time? I have Bible studies to lead and girls to mentor and blogposts to write- spiritual things that matter!! Holy ambitions that will impact the world!! So naturally I huff loudly as I scrub to ensure everyone knows how inconvenienced I am, bits of Panda Puffs flying like shrapnel. Never mind that we can afford Whole Foods fare or that the little boys who deposited these offensive bowls are allergy-free. Never mind that they're physically healthy and conscientious enough to carry their bowls this far. Never mind that their dad has worked a 50 hour week. Never mind that the Father seeks to work out humility and sacrifice and character in me. I could have been reading my Bible app, people!!


The great orator of the 20th century, Oswald Chambers, put it this way:"It's one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us."

Being faithful and honorable to the Lord when no one requires it or applauds it or even notices it. Keeping our thoughts pure because He asks us to. Doing our devotions because it draws us closer to His heart. Speaking well of our boss because gossip grieves the Father. Holding our tongue when our spouse has really failed. Extending grace to the child that keeps disobeying.

What if we shifted our perspectives away from inconvenience and towards gratitude for the things and people that prompt all of these routines?

There are a jillion ways to love the Lord in the regular places of our lives. What if we joyfully folded our laundry as a service to our families, grateful that their little bums don't have to run around nakey? What if we delighted in our commute as a chance to listen to a sermon or reach out to a lonely BART neighbor? What if we were thankful for that boring, far away job because it keeps us afloat in the beautiful Bay Area? What if we looked up from our phones and tried talking to that grocery store checker or fellow shoppers as we waited in long lines? What if we shifted our perspectives away from inconvenience and towards gratitude for the things and people that prompt all of these routines? Grateful for the ability to work, to own, to clean, to parent, to connect, to give, to grieve.



What if we let God into the mundane? What if we asked Him to transform our understanding of all that we MUST do to all that we GET to do? What if serving God isn't about the mountaintops? What if it's all about the regular, simple moments of cheerfully setting our alarms, doing our sit-ups and vacuuming up Cheerios. What if we allowed the Father to speak to us as we walked our dogs and prepared for board meetings and took out the trash? He's everywhere, wanting to reign in our Gram-worthy successes, but also in our everyday grind. He's the God of At Home Mommy and Left the House Mommy. He knows you. He sees you. He's proud of you, whether you're killing it or sucking it up, famous or living in obscurity, scintillating or ordinary. He takes us to the mountain-top, but He never leaves us or forsakes us in the valley. Let's honor Him with the integrity of our devotion, moment by moment, because He's right there in the middle of our very regular, beautiful mundane. Panda Puffs and all.


7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 139:7-12

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