Tag: spirituality

Servant of Some

emilyschuchLeave a comment

The baby wakes me up earlier than usual. my head is throbbing. I nurse him and then he spits up all over my shirt. 

I stumble out of my room to find the 2 year old has woken his brother up early as well. He announces to me he’s poopy. He’s always poopy. Yesterday, it was 3 times before lunch. 

I change the diapers and assemble breakfast and finally sit down with my coffee and open to Mark. 

Jesus tells the disciples he’s going to die. They don’t get it. I always find it funny that they don’t get it. He’s not telling a parable. He very plainly says, “I’m going to be killed and raised on the third day,” and they’re like, “Why does he speak to us in these riddles???” Silly disciples. 

Then, they start arguing about who will be the greatest. I wonder if Jesus rolled his eyes a little. He puts a child before them. Children were considered lowly and insignificant. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Even the lowly and insignificant. 

I think the disciples still didn’t get it. A messiah who died? Greatness through service of the lowly? Maybe they not only didn’t get it. Maybe they didn’t like it. 

Some days, I don’t like it either. Some days, I  see no greatness in the spit up and diapers. 

I am not a servant of all, but I am a servant of some. And yet, there is no task of mine so lowly that he has not gone lower. There is no role so humble that he has not been humbled more. 

So, while I don’t always see the greatness in my service, it does make me see his greatness. It makes me see the surprising glory of a king who would become a servant. It makes me see the surpassing beauty of love that lays down itself life for the lowly and undeserving. And when I see him, I am more happy to serve here. 

“We have seen his glory” and so, we can believe there’s greatness here…tucked in unexpected places and woven through these ordinary days. 

When His Love Feels Like Death

emilyschuchLeave a comment

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazrus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

I read the story of Lazrus the other day and there was so much that stood out to me, but most particularly this verse. You can tell John dropped it in there knowing it would make the reader sit up in his seat. Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus so…. You think it would say, “So, he rushed to be there and keep Lazarus from dying. But it doesn’t it says, “So, he delayed. Because He loved them, He delayed.

If love is desiring someone’s highest good, John is saying that it was Lazarus’s highest good…to die. 

Sometimes, it feels like God’s delays are not love, but death. Sometimes, we don’t understand how he can still be good when our hopes lie buried or we suffer in this life. The crowd expressed these doubts. “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” And you know what? The answer was “yes.” Jesus could have kept Lazarus from dying, but he deliberately chose not to. It was better not to. 

His love doesn’t always make sense to us.

And yet…we can trust Him. Why? Because Jesus stood before our grave and decided to go in. He looked at the hold death had on us and traded places to free us. 

Martha, who kind of gets a bad rap, makes a beautiful confession of faith in Christ even while her brother’s body was still in the grave. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” She believed…even if…even though…

We can make the same confession. We can trust even when his love feels like death because we know Him. And we know that in Him, resurrection always waits on the other side.

We Are Children Too

emilyschuchLeave a comment

“Let the children come to me,” he said and I wonder if he meant more. I wonder if it was not just a call, but a proclamation, an announcement of who was qualified to come: the unashamedly weak, the unabashedly needy, the artlessly vulnerable.

Yet, when we become mothers, these are things we repress in order to meet our call. A truth once known, but long forgotten becomes buried beneath the burdens we carry. It is wrapped up and sealed tight under layers of new identity: caretaker, home keeper, comforter, mediator, educator, schedule maker. Deep, deep down it goes each time as we gather our strength and flex to carry the laundry basket, the child, the emotional and mental weight of it all.

But if we hear the call, somehow we we must remember what was once familiar and now, feels so foreign. We can wear our weakness as a badge and not a scarlet letter. We can bring our need as as an offering and not a regret. We can cast our cares and not merely collect them. The truth long forgotten must be rediscovered, re-embraced, re-known.

That we are children too.

Happy Mother’s Day!

emilyschuchLeave a comment

When I became a mom, I thought often about how it was a calling to reflect God to my kids, but I think I’ve been surprised by how often that has been reversed. How often God has shown His heart for me through them.

These people see me at my absolute worst. They know me as I really am. Yet, they keep a short record of wrongs. They show me new mercies on new mornings. They quickly offer me grace when I ask for forgiveness no matter how many times I’ve failed.

They are determined to love me.

Almost every night before bed, Gideon hugs me and tells me I’m the best mom ever. Some nights I smile and say thank you. Some nights, it makes me almost cry because I feel like the farthest thing from the best mom ever. The love we feel we don’t deserve is the hardest to receive.

But then…real love is never about keeping score. Real love is about belonging. God calls us by name and says, “You’re mine.” He loves us simply because we’re His.

What a sweet gift it is to love and be loved by these kids. I’m so thankful they belong to me and I belong to them.

Happy Mother’s Day! May you feel loved and blessed today.

Beauty Tips For My Daughter

emilyschuch2 Comments

Beauty Tips For My Daughter

Seek beauty. You were made for it. But choose carefully. There are different kinds, one that fades with time and one that grows with it. The secret? You can’t get the second while clinging to the first.

Your imperfections are not a problem to be fixed. They’re a gift meant to lead you to seek true beauty outside yourself. To be physically perfect can be a curse wrapped as a blessing.

Your body is not a trophy. It’s a tool. Use it. Use what is perishable to gain what is imperishable. The fool pours her soul into preserving the body. The wise woman pours her body into preserving her soul.

Consider your end. The plain and beautiful alike shall perish. Not a single product can change that. So, choose carefully where you will place your hope. The world and its desires will pass away, but the woman who does the will of God will live forever.

But for now…adorn yourself with wisdom. Put on gentleness. Fear the Lord. Rest your soul in Him and you will find the beauty your soul craves…beauty that will not fail you when all else fades.

No One is Grading You.

emilyschuchLeave a comment

 “No one is grading you.”
Those words echoed through my head recently, making me stop and regard them somewhat suspiciously.

I always thrived on grades. From the day I was handed a flag to carry for earning my middle school team’s highest GPA, they came to define me and I suppose I welcomed the definition. I always wanted to prove myself. I looked forward to geometry tests (proofs are fun people). I became physically ill before cross country races because I felt so much pressure. Looking back now, I see the pressure came from no one but myself. 

I’m beginning to see how that pressure has translated into adulthood. The floor I haven’t had time to mop seems a direct reflection of my failures. The days that I feel totally overwhelmed seem a direct assessment and condemnation of my abilities to manage life. “How do I stop being so hard on myself?” I voiced to my husband on just one of those days.

I tend to roll my eyes a little when people tell me to love myself or be kind to myself because I think, in general, an abundance, not a lack, of self-love is our problem. And yet…there’s something there, something of Jesus offering his easy yoke, something of him telling Martha to stop hustling and bustling and just sit with Him.

Jesus was tough on those who were blind to their failures and gentle with those who saw them all too clearly. For the latter, the gospel comes gently, like a mother who picks up a too-tired toddler to shush them to sleep. It means the pressure is off. The test is over or rather, someone else was tested in our place. Now we aim for excellence, not to earn, but in freedom, because we are already accepted and approved.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe, but I want to believe it more in 2023. I want, as Peter commended, to stand firm in the true grace of God which tells us we don’t have to earn rest. It tells us God is just as glorified in our rest as He is in our labors. Maybe even more…because the one who can rest is the one who has marinated their souls in the gospel so much they know they’ve got nothing to prove.

Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you also need to intentionally leave the colossal mess in the kitchen to go bask in the sunshine because who cares? No one is coming to inspect your kitchen. Maybe you need to hear it too.

No one is grading you.

The Imperfect Servanthood of Motherhood

emilyschuchLeave a comment

I’ve been thinking about servanthood which may as well be a synonym for motherhood. The tasks of motherhood are tasks of service: making meals, refilling cups, cleaning spills, wiping butts, re-wiping the butts that were inadequately wiped. From morning to night, I am a servant. Too often though, I am a grumbling servant, a proud servant, a servant who doesn’t want to serve anymore.

Philippians 2 describes Jesus in three forms: God, man, and servant. As God, He had the right to demand to be served, yet He came as man so that He could serve us. He had every right to grasp, but instead, he surrendered. He had every right to demand, but instead, He gave. “Have this mind among you…” Paul says.

I’m praying I can become a more humble and joyful servant, but I’m also really thankful I don’t have to earn or prove anything. I’m thankful that the Gospel isn’t merely “Here’s Christ’s example. Go do it,” but “Here’s Christ’s righteousness. He did what you could never do for you.” I can never be the servant Jesus is, but I can pursue growth out of freedom and gratitude. We should want to serve better because Christ has served us…but we can also receive grace when we serve imperfectly because we have been so perfectly served by Him.

Receiving the Appointed Bitter Gifts of God

emilyschuchLeave a comment

Writing a book is a funny thing because it becomes like your little shoulder angel, whispering in your ear, reminding you of all the fine words you wrote that you’re supposed to be also putting into action. Maybe God has a little chuckle watching me deal with the many opportunities I have to do so. Like, oh you wrote about sacrificial love? Here’s a 6 am wake up call, some poop handprints on the bathroom wall, and a vomit covered toddler. Enjoy.

It sounds stupid, but I’m often taken off guard when life is hard. I can be personally affronted by inconvenience. Do something hard and unpleasant? Surely, not ME. Maybe we never grow out of this childishness without a perspective shift…because if we believe our lives are fundamentally about us, then our daily difficulties seem out of place. If we think we’re the director and star of our own drama, we will be continuously perplexed when our storylines go awry. 

While we’d like to think that our lives are self-made, scripture tells us that they are appointed to us. “Only let each person lead the life that the LORD has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Our lives and every day that makes up their sum, including its difficulties, has been assigned to us.

If we see this, if it dawns on us that perhaps we are not the stars of this show nor the authors of this story, but recipients of a part to play in God’s grand narrative, we might begin to see our daily difficulties differently, even as a gift. I’m not sure I can ever look at poop handprints and think, “What a lovely gift,” but I think at least, we could see such inconveniences as bitter medicine with a sweet purpose. 

Every hard thing is meant to remind me that I am here on this earth to magnify Him and not the other way around. I can fight what He has assigned to me or submit myself to it, receiving the hard things as God-ordained and therefore, good. The toddler tantrum has been assigned to me. The poop handprints have been given. Though I might regularly pray, “Lord please let this cup pass from me”, the dishes and the laundry have apparently been appointed unto me for all my days under the sun. Yet I know from whom they come. I know who holds my lot and draws my boundary lines. The path He’s set out for me may include many things I’d rather leave out, but I know where it leads. To life. To joy. To pleasures evermore.

Big announcement! Upcoming Book

emilyschuchLeave a comment

Thank you to those who are following along on this blog. I started this blog as a fresh out of college philosophy graduate. I, and my writing, have changed a lot since then, as I am now a stay-at-home homeschool mom of five. God began to help me hone what I wanted my writing to do: enlighten and encourage. And naturally, it has veered mostly toward the topic that consumes my life: motherhood.

A few years ago (3 1/2 to be exact, but who’s counting?), a handful of people told me I was funny and I should write a book about motherhood. Apparently, that was all it took to convince me that I’m funny and I should write a book about motherhood. But truthfully, it had always been a dream of mine to have a book published though it felt a little like dreaming of making it on broadway or becoming the queen of England.

Nonetheless, I started writing. I set out to create a book that gave moms in the trenches what I believed they needed: real gospel encouragement for the calling of motherhood and help laughing at the parts of motherhood you have to laugh about or go crazy.

I began to send it to publishers which felt like a big shot in the dark in a world where it’s very hard to be traditionally published, but God opened a door and led me to a publisher that was interested in my book.

Lots and LOTS of waiting, uncertainty, pandemic delays, hours and hours of editing, more waiting, and two babies later, it’s finally coming together. The cover is still in process and release date TBD…but stay tuned.

I am SO excited to announce that Majoring in Motherhood, my motherhood crash course, is coming soon. 🤗