When we were in the height of the chaos of 2020, not going any­where, not hav­ing any­one in, I clear­ly remem­ber a moment that I flip­pant­ly iden­ti­fied as “los­ing my mind”, in which I briefly thought about iron­ing my cloth nap­kins. It was humor­ous to every­one, and like-mind­ed stay-at-home-moms echoed that laugh­ter, and we moved on with our days.

It wasn’t that long ago that I thought that the things that I do dur­ing the day are chores that I should move through as quick­ly and effi­cient­ly as pos­si­ble. Life at home had become a mat­ter of util­i­ty. All tasks should be endured, and com­plet­ed so we could move on to what­ev­er goal we have; sit­ting on the porch with a glass of wine, read­ing by the fire, shopping.

I am thank­ful that I no longer hold that opin­ion. When God called me to be a wife and moth­er, it was a com­plete call­ing. He didn’t give me a hus­band, a home, and chil­dren and then I acci­den­tal­ly tripped and fell into the dish-water. His call­ing was just that…complete.

Being a wife and moth­er is so much more broad and beau­ti­ful than wear­ing my baby in a Moby wrap on the beach. It’s dirty hands, hard work, it’s load after love­ly load of laun­dry. Part of moth­er­ing is teach­ing my chil­dren that we glo­ri­fy God in every­thing we do. Not only in the glo­ri­ous things.

So that psy­cho­log­i­cal lapse I had when I thought about iron­ing the nap­kins, became a pur­pose­ful Thurs­day after­noon, where I taught my daugh­ter how to use an iron, and hap­pi­ly placed tidy nap­kins at the sup­per table. Even the mun­dane can be beautiful.