I crave calm.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in ten years of motherhood, it’s that there’s no such thing as clocking out early for the day. The urgent needs and incessant demands of small children are exhausting and non-stop. There’s a lot we can do to lighten our loads: simplify our homes, lower our expectations of what we can accomplish, and train our children to obey.
Nevertheless, calm is one word that will never describe my daily existence as a mother. I hate being in a hurry. But so much of my life is spent hurrying from one task to the next. I need to quick finish this article so I can fold a load of laundry and wake up my little one so she’ll go to sleep tonight at a reasonable hour.
This was a busy summer for our family. We moved on the last day of school, and it seems we’ve been out of town or scrambling ever since. Then, towards the tail end of the scrambling, we found out baby #5 is on the way. Garden rehab and home improvement projects seem to seep in and fill all the cracks of our existence. Only last week and this, I managed to send and deliver four wedding gifts that I didn’t manage to give at the proper times. (Brides, you know who you are. I’m sorry.)
Last week I was reading the story of the woman in the crowd who was healed when she touched the fringe of Jesus’ robe. And our trusty friend Matthew Henry had this to say: “Let us not complain of a crowd, and a throng, and a hurry, as long as we are in the way of our duty, and doing good…”
We tend to think that Jesus only comes to meet us in our need when we have found a quiet spot—an uninterrupted hour—to call on His name.
This woman had to weave herself to the center of a crowd to find Jesus. She was relentless in her pursuit of her Savior, the only one who could heal her body’s broken condition.
But what about her soul? Surely her soul was crying out for healing just as much as her broken body. And Jesus’ words to her were, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
As mothers, our duty often lies in the center of a clamoring crowd hurrying in one direction or another. And like the woman in this story, we find Jesus there in the center when we are unrelenting in our pursuit of Him. When we reach out and grasp Him, even if it is only the fringe of His robe, He does not leave us alone in our sin, our sickness, and our fears.
Pass me not, O Gentle Savior.
Hear my humble cry.
While on others thou art calling,
Do not pass me by.
-Fanny Crosby
