Not our ways!

For those days that just won't go right, here's an enlightening and encouraging article.  For the person who is so focused on the what, working their fingers to the bone for some great cause, that they forget about the why, here's another great article.  And another on busyness for the person who sees their value in what they do, not in who they are.  These all showed up on the same day, a day I was struggling with one of the great philosophical questions of the ages: what is it all about, what does it all mean, am I actually accomplishing anything meaningful?  I'm not just a busy mom/career woman trying to balance the work/life conundrum like so many others in my cohort, rather I'm an ex-career woman turned stay-at-home mom, one with a chronic inflammatory disease that sometimes makes it hard to get out of bed of a morning, let alone accomplish anything productive besides just surviving the day.  My husband is out shoveling snow and I want above all else to help him, but I can't, not if I don't want to spend the next three days sick and miserable.  So here I sit feeling useless, unproductive...worthless.

But that's our culture speaking, one that defines one's value by one's usefulness.  That isn't the scale I should be using to judge my situation, not if my faith means anything.  I am valuable simply because I was created, if I never accomplish anything else in my entire life, that's okay.  The success of others shouldn't discourage me, it is not a competition after all.  There is no dishonor in a small, quiet life if that's the course I've been given to run and I run it faithfully, well, more of a stumbling walk, but the metaphor still holds.  'His ways are not our ways,' and 'the heart of man plans his way but the Lord establishes his steps,' should give me some clue, but sometimes I am a very slow learner!