Precious Gifts

Motherhood is a complex calling. Days can be long, nights sleepless and it can be easy to fall into the temptation of self-pity or discontentment. I am reading a book called, George Muller of Bristol. It is a Biography about a man who wholeheartedly serves the Lord with his wife through caring for orphans. His wife got pregnant and gave birth to a still baby. She then was in her sick bed for 6 weeks after the birth. Following is an edifying exert from George's journal that once again gives me proper vision and focus in motherhood:

"How many a servant of God has no more exalted idea of the divine privilege of a sanctified parenthood! A wife and child are most precious gifts of God received, in answer to prayer, from His hand. Not only are they not hindrances, but they are helps, most useful in fitting a servant of Christ for certain parts of his work for which no other preparation is so adequate. They serve to teach him many most valuable lessons, and to round out his character into a far more symmetrical beauty and serviceableness. And when it is remembered how a godly association in holiness and usefulness may thus be supplied, and above all a godly succession through many generations, it will be seen how wicked is the spirit that treats holy wedlock and its fruits in offspring, with lightness and contempt. "