I remember the first time I felt the calling to be a stay at home mom. I never believed that God would call me to stay home. I went to Anderson University and graduated with a degree in Business Management. My mom was a working mom and a pastor’s wife which has its own list of obligations which included leading worship at our church and she was a mom to four children. She was crazy busy and yet she chose to go to work full time and she made it happen. I had been working a job as a Human Resource Generalist at the hospital and I was finding my rhythm. I finished my work for that day and headed out to my car. I recall walking to my white Saturn ion on a beautiful spring day and pulling out my keys from my always large and full purse. I found my keys and I remember stopping in my tracks and seeing my reflection in the driver side window. I heard in my head which I believe was the LORD, “You will be a stay at home mom.” At the time I was not even pregnant. Little did I know the LORD was preparing my head and my heart because later I was pregnant with TWINS and we would be packing up and moving to not just a new city but a new state where we did not have any family or friends nearby.
I find myself here eight years later writing to you from my couch as a stay at home mom. My kids are now all in school and I believe I am close to the end of that chapter of my life. I am beginning to feel the call back to work although I am not certain what that will look like or exactly when that will be. I have found a steady routine again, I am in a rhythm just as I had been all of those years ago and I long to hear that stop in my tracks calling. Could the LORD just stop me in my tracks and tell me again, “you will be a...” fill in the blank, whatever that blank be? Right now my routine is fairly simple. I wake up, exercise, get ready for the day, clean up around the house, write a few blogs, make breakfast and lunch, keep up with the dishes, pick the kids up from school, help with homework, play with the kids usually chase, make dinner, do baths, clean up dinner and go to bed. It all can just feel incredibly mundane and I wonder sometimes what I am doing and if it is enough. I ask, “Is this really what you had in mind for me LORD when I went to get my degree?” Though I am so thankful for this time to raise my kids I still wonder is it, and was it enough? Maybe you too have found yourself in a routine and at times you feel bored with it and you wonder if what you are doing is enough, should you be doing more? Has God called you to more? What will come of the legacy you leave behind after all is said and done.
One morning while feeling all of these feelings all while eating breakfast, reading my Bible and praying I found myself reading 2 Chronicles 4. I prayed what do you have for me in this reading today LORD? Once again it all felt routine, mundane. Have you ever read the Old Testament before? At times there are lists of genealogies and measurements and what the people could and could not eat, what they could and could not touch. Sometimes it feels like a never ending list of do’s and do not do’s. As I read this day Solomon was having the temple built for the LORD. In this chapter was just a listing of the altar was 20 cubits long and made from bronze, he made ten golden lampstands, five were on the north side and five on the south side. Wow! I did not believe the LORD had a word for me on this day. I thought, “I am gonna just have to spend some quiet time and wait for you to tell me something else LORD.” And so that is what I did. Guess what he showed me. That morning I had been wondering if what I did with my day was worth it and would there be any fruit? Did I have a legacy to leave behind? This is what he told me as I sat quietly. I saw it within the listings of all the measurements, pots and pans and all of the things, a name...Huram-abi. Huram-abi laid the finishing touches on the temple of the LORD. He and King Solomon made it their mission to complete the temple of the LORD. Most of the work done on the temple is said that Solomon did the work but Solomon is the King. Solomon got the street cred but we all know he was not really doing the dirty work with his hands. He had people who were essential to the building of the temple. His people could have and maybe did have the thought, “Why am I doing this?” “Is this going to leave a legacy behind for my kids?” Will anyone remember me?” Little did they know that this temple would be destroyed later when the city was overtaken and taken captive. Had they known this information would they have stopped their life’s work, their life’s mission and purpose? I sure hope not but that must be the reason not everything is revealed to us. The thing is, we do still talk about this temple today. This temple is remembered in history. We do not know all the names of those who worked but we do have two, Solomon and Hiram-abi but there is also a third and it is God. These two worked and were remembered and their work points back to working for the LORD.
This morning I also read in The Quest by Beth Moore and she wrote that when we hear the word Zion used in the New Testament it is used in multiple ways but one of those ways it is used to describe Zion is to refer to the temple that was built by Solomon. Now that Jesus has come to earth and died and rose again he promised us someone greater would come to us and that would be the Holy Spirit. Guess what?!?! This temple that has been physically destroyed can now be built within us. Psalm 84:5 says, “Happy am I when my strength is in me, in my heart is the highway to Zion.” The Holy Spirit, the temple, Zion resides in our hearts. And when we dedicate our life’s routines to him we can lead others to Zion as well.
This was a great reminder to me that my life is not mundane; behind the dishes, laundry, school pickups, snotty noses, homework struggles my life is a highway that leads to Zion. Maybe your mundane is not behind snotty noses and dishes but behind piles of paperwork and a list of employees needing your attention. Your life is a highway that leads to Zion. Those who you lead both small and big, children or adults, you hold the key to the highway to Zion. It is important for us to remember that though those who worked on the temple with Solomon and Hiram-abi are not remembered but God’s name was carried on and though my name or your name may not make it to the end of the age may it be our life’s goal to carry the name of Jesus wherever we find ourselves even if it is in the chronicles of the mundane. You do have a legacy to carry through and may that legacy today and forever be the name above all names, Jesus Christ.
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