Hey young moms, do you ever feel insignificant, raising kids at home, picking up toys, wiping up spills, refereeing squabbles? Do you wonder if God’s forgotten about you or overlooked you? I wonder if Mary felt this way, having to give birth to the Son of God in a small barn surrounded by the sounds and smells of animals! Talk about feeling insignificant.

I really struggled with feeling insignificant as a younger mom with toddlers.

I felt that my life’s work could be summed up in a picture: the ocean waves coming in and destroying the sandcastle I built the hour before. All of my work was undone in minutes.

I wondered how God would use me when I was stuck in the house!

I wondered if God noticed me as I picked up Cheerios off the floor.

God did more than just see me. He was moulding me and used that time to change me. God often uses wilderness times to prepare us to really know Him before we are used of Him for some task. He used every frustrating situation to point out the pride in my heart. He was softening rough edges, sweetening a sarcastic tongue, and teaching me to trust Him.

In hindsight, I wondered if child raising mattered. Wasn’t this job limiting my creativity and squelching my opportunities? How would I pursue my passions and use the gifts God has given me to pursue my art and writing with kids hanging on my apron strings?

As if watching God’s children is not important enough or big enough. As if raising the next generation was the secondary work to the really important stuff of this world.

Maybe you’re in the trenches with little ones today. Maybe you feel overlooked and unseen. Maybe you dread the mundane and, if you were honest, would say that you desire a few more mountaintop moments yourself.

Turns out, life is more often lived in the mundane, and those little moments of quiet faithfulness are the building blocks of our lives. They are the times when God puts us on His potter’s wheel and remolds us and makes us into the shape, purpose, vessel He intends for us.

In the wee hours of the morning, when we are caring for an aging parent, when we are referring toddler squabbles or dealing with an unreasonable person on the phone, these are the moments that define our moulding. Will we submit to God’s work, and worry about His glory, or will we kick, scream, and demand our rights? It totally depends on what our heart adores and who rules our life, doesn’t it?

Paul Tripp made this point in “Advent” and I wanted to share it with you:

You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn’t rule our little moments and doesn’t work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that’s where you and I live.The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they are the little moments that we live in and that form us. This is where I think “Big Drama Christianity” gets us into trouble. It can cause us to devalue the significance of the little moments of life and the “small change” grace that meets us there. Because we devalue the little moments where we live, we don’t tend to notice the sin that gets exposed there. We fail to seek the grace that’s offered to us. You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments. The character that was formed in those little moments is what shapes how you respond to the big moments of life.

Mary was literally insignificant, poor, and unknown, but not unseen by God. God saw her humility and faithfulness demonstrated in her daily walk. God knew her heart, her purity and peace and contentment…and isn’t it true that God cares more about our affection for Him than our exploits for Him? He measures “BIG THINGS” in a different way than we do. BIG in God’s economy is humble, small, dependent and trusting. BIG in God’s economy is faithful, willing, ready. BIG in God’s economy is obedient, submissive, and pure in heart and that should give us hope because we can all do those big things.

Originally written by Sarah Beals of Joy-Filled Days. Used with permission.