Rethinking

Yesterday, John, one of my four brothers, read my post and sent me an eamil asking me a very good, important question.  He wondered why I wrote that I was a violinist and librarian instead of wife, mother and grandmother.  Good question.  Why did I do that?  I certainly have been a full time homemaker for all my married life, and only went back into education after my last child graduated from homeschool high school. 

I spent the day thinking about that, and I realized I bought into the world view that being a homemaker has less value somehow.  How quickly one can slide into worldly thinking.  There is great value in "just" being a homemaker, and  a mother has lasting effects on her children.  So, I changed my "occupation" on my bio.  I may change it again as I keep pondering this.  

I thank God for giving us family.  My brother was there for me to ask probing questions, to give love freely, and just be there.  He sees me in a way that I cannot see myself, and that thought, made me think about a poem I learned long ago by Robert Burns. It is called "To a Louse", and it was about seeing a louse on a woman's bonnet in church.  The last stanza says:

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An’ foolish notion
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us 
An ev’n Devotion

Burns thought it would be wonderful if God (Pow'r) gave us the gift to see ourselves the way others see us.  But as I thought on this too, I thought this would not necessarily be a good thing, either, since people are all flawed, their view of us can be flawed.   I still pondered all of that as we went to church last night for Maundy Thursday.  It was the day we remembered and thought upon the Lord's last night in the upper room with his disciples and He gave us the Lord's Supper. Then I realized that the very best thing for us is to see ourselves the way God does.  We are sinners, nothing we do is good and Isaish says. "... all our righteousness is like filthy rags." Yet God doesn't view us that way.  For the believer, when God looks upon us, He sees the righteousness of His Son.  Jesus took all our sins upon Himself and died and rose again, to give us eternal life.  God doesn't see the sin of the believer,  He sees the righteousness of His Son upon us.  So, how should I see myself  with all my flaws, all my mistakes?  Forgiven.  I am forgiven, and that is amazing that God's love extends to all even me.

I am happy my brother took time to ask me that question.