Back when I had a houseful of little children to tend to, Nate would often walk in the door after a 13 hour work day and say, “So, what did you do today?”

As an at-home mom, I didn’t have a good answer. Every day was jam-packed with activity and hard work, but I couldn’t give him a summary statement about what I’d done. My temptation was to spout a litany of minutiae in a minute-by-minute report, which of course was the last thing he wanted to hear. After giving a nebulous answer, I’d ask him the same thing. “What did you do today?”

If he’d had a day in which he couldn’t point to anything specific he’d finished, he’d still respond with confidence. He’d say, “It was a building-block day.”

I liked the upbeat sound of that and knew what he meant. So why didn’t I have anything good to say when he asked me what I’d done all day? I decided to give it some thought and come up with a succinct answer, especially for those frustrating days when I hadn’t been able to check anything off my to-do list.

Knowing Nate wasn’t interested in the long answer to any question at that point in his day, I crafted my statement to be short but relevant to my purposes as a mom. When he next asked the what-did-you-do question, I was ready. “I raised your children,” I summarized. That seemed to satisfy us both.

There’s only one problem. If too many building-block, raising-children days stockpile, discouragement can take over. Most of us are result-oriented. If we can’t see the effects of our efforts, we begin questioning our calling.

I well remember a day when I reached a discouragement low. The five kids we had at the time were ages 10, 8, 6, 2 and 1, four boys and one girl. I was on my hands and knees wiping up under two high chairs for the umpteenth time, questioning the choices that had put me there. Self-pity had arrived, priming my pump with tears, and I did the only thing I knew to do: whine.

Since the children didn’t care that their mom was having a  crisis, I took it straight to the top and whined to God. But he stopped me immediately.

Bringing Scripture to my mind (below), in essence he said, “Don’t wipe the floor for your toddlers; wipe it for me.” In one concise statement, he had crashed my pity paty.

The Bible says  Everything we do ought to be done for God, not other people, not even needy toddlers. If we elevate our motives that way, grunt work is lifted to a divine level, and our jobs become privileges, because they have God’s attention and our work matters to him. If we do it for others or ourselves, we quickly lose perspective, as I had.

I had wanted children and was thankful for each one. I’d hoped to be able to stay home full time and was glad I could. The Lord had given me the desires of my heart, and I’d responded by whining.

If we work directly for God without any middle-men, we’re entrusting the most difficult tasks of life to someone who notices, appreciates and understands. Pastor Erwin Lutzer put it this way: “Anything done in private with a desire to glorify God is remembered by him eternally and kept safe in his care.” That’s pretty exciting when applied to wiping a floor!

Pastor also said that what we do is not as important as the person for whom we do it. If I wiped the floor under the high chairs with a happy heart because I did it for God, it could actually change drudgery into worship. And there on my knees, holding a rag loaded with toddler spill-over, that’s exactly what happened.

“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Some families are musical. A friend’s five children all learned stringed instruments and now have their own chamber orchestra. Growing up we knew a family of nine, all of whom sang and played. They traveled to churches and put on lively, impressive concerts. Then there’s the Osmonds, the Cashes, the Jacksons and countless others, all musically gifted.

Our family is musical, too, although not quite like those above. But Nate and I attended more kid-concerts than we could count, and tonight I got to attend one more. Birgitta, our number seven, has always loved to sing and dance. She and our next-door-neighbor, Stefanie, formed their first group when they were eight and six, calling themselves the Cool Cats. They wrote their own songs and choreographed their own dances. My personal favorite was the duet, “Mazagine, Magazine!” Their brothers put written programs together and corralled audiences from the neighborhood.

Once these two were in high school, they tried out for the show choirs at Hersey High, hoping to parlay their childhood experience into a more professional gig. Both made it and were able to begin singing while dancing, in earnest. Tonight, although Birgitta is no longer a high schooler, we attended a performance of the boy-girl show choir group, “On Stage.”

(Birgitta in center)

Each past performance has been impressive as the kids danced aerobically while singing with gusto, never losing their wind. They’ve won endless awards and outdone themselves every year with each program more spectacular than the last. Although nothing like this existed when I was in high school, I wish it had. Never mind that my parents thought dancing was “worldly” and ought not to be done. I knew in my heart if Mom had found an acceptable way to dance, she would have.

It’s important to encourage kids in the direction they’re already programmed to go. The famous Scripture verse that says we should train up our children “in the way they should go” means exactly that. Some people say it means we ought to train our kids in spiritual things and when they’re old, they won’t turn away from God, but it makes sense the other way, too.

God creates each individual with talent, tendencies and desires. Birgitta wanted to sing and dance, and it’s been obvious from the time she was very young. Nate and I have been thankful for the creativity within her and tried to encourage her to develop it. Having a healthy outlet in the school show choirs, managed with excellence by those in charge, was exactly what she needed, being both athletic and imaginative. As people used to say about Ginger Rogers, she did everything Fred Astair did, but in high heels and backwards. The show choir kids did all that, and added risers.

If we encourage our children toward their natural bents, when they’re old, they’ll be glad they didn’t waste them. To use the talents God gave is to lead a satisfying life.

^“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

(2nd from left)

Jack and I are once again prowling the beach in a foot of snow. As I stepped over the top of the dune this morning, my boot sunk in deep enough to fill it, a chilly feeling. Nevertheless, the vista was gorgeous.

While we were in Florida, the monster snow mounds that had been so formidable have shrunk considerably. Although Mary and I confidently walked on the first two “ice-ranges”, we dared not venture out to three and four. Now the situation is more unstable than ever as Lake Michigan is again churning, eating away at the icy foundations under the snow.

Truth be told, the water beneath what appeared to be sturdy ice all winter was never stable. As we tentatively stepped onto what looked rock-solid, the ice could easily have turned into floating icebergs. Crevices and cracks in the surface that were visible clued us into what was happening underneath. As the local creek flowed from the woods toward the lake like it has for centuries, it ducked under the ice but never stopped flowing.

As Mary said at the time, “We see it moving in the woods, heading for the lake. It has to go somewhere, but where?” It was invisible.

Now, with the icy snow in mid-melt, we see. The water movement was no less real when it was invisible, but we doubted its reality. Massive chunks of glacier-like mini-cliffs are “calving” into the lake now, testifying to the state of flux that always existed. Mary was right. The water had been heading for the lake directly under our feet, gently, slowly, but steadily flowing. And moving water always carves away at what’s nearby.

Much of life is about the invisible. Emotions, thoughts, promises, the future. God, too, is invisible. After thinking about it, I’m inclined to believe the most critical part of life is what’s happening under the surface. Whatever’s going on beneath our outward exterior is the foundation of who we are. And interestingly, our unseen-ness eventually becomes seen.

If we cheat when no one is watching, eventually we get caught. If we overeat, even in secret, eventually we get fat. If we harbor hatred toward someone, eventually we explode. If we walk on ice with water flowing beneath it, eventually we fall in the lake. If we never spend time with God, eventually we’ll be far from him. Reality is about the “eventually”.

It’s so difficult for us to believe the invisibles. As my boot filled with snow and my foot got cold, I knew many people were walking around in flip-flops in climates that were sweltering. But when my feet were freezing, their warmth wasn’t real.

If we don’t believe in the invisibles, we’ll miss out on a great deal of what’s important. As for me, I still struggle with believing what I can’t see except for one thing. Long ago I decided to put my trust in the unseen God. Watching what he orchestrates on my local beach is enough to make me a believer. But there are other reasons I depend on him, like the many changed lives that are visible, people who make every move based on the personal lordship of that same God and then live victoriously.

As I paced through the weeks of Nate’s cancer last fall and now walk through the months of widowhood, my invisible God has sustained me and provided for me in a thousand visible ways. How could I ever doubt that he’s really there?

”Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)