Laying Down Your Life

One can be a Christian for umpteen years and still miss some fundamentals. I have long been familiar with the notion of "laying down your life" for Christ. Translated into layman terms this means that one has to give up all attachment to the self, pledging to allow God to use one's life for His glory and to show His love for people.

Years ago, God gave me to understand that I had a very important ministry at home. God has a different calling for different women. For me, it was that. Somehow, I chose to obey that call by laying down my life so that God could use me to show His love for The Husband and The Children.

I didn't start off very godly at all - impatient, prone to angry outbursts and spells of melancholy where I bemoaned my foregone career. But because I made that choice in obedience to the calling he laid on me, He has wrought changes to my heart and given me honour beyond what I could have earned on my own effort. Because I obeyed Him, I bask now in the love and affection of 2 lovely children. Because I obeyed Him, I earned The Husband's respect and I know he loves me far more today, than when we first dated. Because I obeyed Him, the world looks upon me and honours me as a virtuous wife and loving mother.

Not to mention that I am far more wise, infinitely more patient, vastly more loving and a sight less arrogant than when I started my miserable little ministry at home... a condition I initially likened to "washing plates and slowly turning into a yellow-faced hag".

I could not have done it without Him because through the years, He was there with me as I faced the myriad challenges of bringing up my children. Which woman doesn't want that? I get the honour but He did the work.

And yet, I was discontent. I splashed with perverse pleasure in the fetid waters of the notoriously well-known Sea of Midlife Crisis and I sat there like a lost soul trumpeting that I wished to live for myself. And today I sit here with tears in my eyes because I can hear God so clearly.

I don't have to make something out of my life. I should simply give it to God and He will make something out of it. I should lay down my life and allow Him to use it. And I know He means what He says because I can feel His hand moving in my life again. He has promised me divine healing and He has promised me a new chapter in my life.

I begin to have a sense that my ministry at home is done, and He is calling me to another new and exciting ministry - one for which I have been uniquely formed in the past almost-decade. After all, which woman spends years out of the workforce only to have the opportunity to re-integrate it through a job that fits her profile and personality in almost every way.

To arrive at this epiphanic moment, I must thank the lovely Chawanmushi, the lovely Leah and the wonderful Grace, who reminded me in so timely a manner, that I am God's child and instrument. And I must thank Questions 12 to 16 of the Bible Study Fellowship's Lesson 17 Questionnaire, and chiefly the question which read "What does it mean to lose your life?" and "Try to give some specific actions where you could put this principle into practice in your daily life."

Yes! Yes! Don't try to make something out of your life. Give it to God and He will make something of it. And whatever He makes, I know that it will be good.