I've always been a person that sticks out in a crowd, for one reason or another. I participated in the individual sport of gymnastics. Although I wasn't the best on the team, I had talents that set me apart from many others - flexibility and grace similar to that of Nastia Liukin. I also tend to have an exuberant personality (mild understatement). I also very zealously and demonstratively loved and served God as a teen. Then, I functioned as a youth pastor, also very zealously and demonstratively. All those things combined, I was used to being noticed. I'm NOT saying I did things spiritually just to be noticed. I did have a very pure heart. Then, my life started moving in a different direction. Youth ministry was a thing of the past and I simply became the wife of my (very awesome, ruggedly handsome, wonderfully Godly) husband. I fell off the radar. Boy, was that an adjustment. I realized that although mostly I had not sought the spotlight, I did use it to gauge the "approval rating" of my life. So, when I became "just another" wife, like many other Godly wives all over the world, I was at some sort of a loss. "Was I doing something wrong?" But, God led me through. He showed me very early on in married life that what I do, I do for Him. Serving my husband is just as spiritual as serving the church in youth ministry. I'm still pleasing God. I'm doing it just for HIM. Pleasing my husband, pleases God.
It.was.monumental.for.me.
So, although nobody else noticed what I was doing and there wasn't any spotlight any more, I knew I was pleasing God to the best of the grace He supplied to me. Then, I entered another stage of life. The Beautiful Bountiful Blossom stage of life. And, I learned the lesson at another level. It's what I like to call the Quiet Life. This wife-mother stage is not a See-Me-Notice-Me stage (except for on that glorious holiday we all know as Mother's Day). I refuse to run from the Quiet Life. I refuse to think ill of the Quiet Life. I refuse to feel "hindered" by the Quiet Life because others try to get away from it. Jesus said I shouldn't do things just to be noticed. Being noticed will be my only reward, if that is what I seek. The Quiet Life is better than a career. It's better than a stage and spotlight. It's better than the approval of man. It's the will of God for me and for so many others. I love the Quiet Life. It's so much simpler, just me, my husband, my Blossoms and my God.
