Does your ordinary work ever feel unseen or meaningless? This Christian Encouragement for Moms will remind you that God cares about the ordinary things and that your worth is found in Christ—not in what you accomplish.
Lately, I’ve been questioning a lot of things about myself. And maybe you’ve been there too—that place where you’re so worn down by life that even the things you once felt confident about suddenly feel uncertain.
This year has been exhausting. My husband was away for several months this spring and summer, and although there are parts of that season that we’re choosing to keep private, I can tell you that we’re still recovering from it. Shortly after he came home, we found ourselves walking through another incredibly difficult situation where vicious rumors were being spread about me—rumors about my mental health, my parenting, and the kind of mother and wife I am.
And whether or not you have ever experienced something quite like that, I think most mothers know what it feels like to have something happen that makes you suddenly question yourself. Am I doing enough? Am I a good mother? Am I a good wife? Am I handling this the way I should?
When I pour all of myself out for the people I love, and yet my community, those people who are supposed to be here to support the family, make false and vicious vicious accusastions about me and my competency, how do you not find yourself doubting the very fabric of your life?
And that’s where I’ve been thinking about something that we don’t talk about enough as Christians: the ordinary things. What if I’ve been measuring my life by the wrong things? What if the things that feel small, repetitive, and insignificant to me are not insignificant to God at all?
There’s a verse in Zechariah that has really been sitting with me lately.
Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand. Zachariah 4:10 NLT
Most of the verses I quote will be from the ESV or NIV, but I really love how the NLT lays out this particular verse. Now, obviously, the context matters—we’re talking about the rebuilding of the temple here—but it got me thinking about my own life and how easily I can overlook the small things simply because they don’t look significant.
I think sometimes, as mothers, we despise the small things without even realizing it. We think the big things matter—the accomplishments, the beautiful home, the children who are thriving, the projects we finish, and the things other people can see and say about us.
Does God really care about the ordinary things?
As I’ve muddled my way through this season and dealt with things that have made me question myself, I’ve found myself asking whether any of what I do each day actually matters. I can work hard to love my family well, care for my home, teach my children, and faithfully serve the people around me, and yet still hear words or see circumstances that make me wonder if I’m doing any of it right.
But as I’ve sat with that dissonance, I’ve come back to something I think is really important: what God sees and what God cares about is ultimately what matters most. And that doesn’t mean my worth is determined by how well I manage my home, how productive I am, how my children behave, or how other people perceive me. My worth was never found in those things in the first place.
So as we look at the ordinary things of our lives, I want to ask a slightly different question. Not, “Does this make me valuable?” but, “Does this matter to God?” Because those are two very different questions.
Let’s talk about it. Welcome to Healing Home. I hope you are encouraged and inspired by your time here.
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Homemaking: What If the Work of My Hands Matters More Than I Realize?
I think one of the reasons ordinary work is so easy to dismiss is because it disappears so quickly. You clean the kitchen in the morning, and by lunchtime it looks like you never cleaned it. You make a meal that takes an hour to prepare, and fifteen minutes later someone is asking what we’re having for dinner. You fold the laundry, only to find another basket waiting for you tomorrow.
Sometimes I look at that cycle and wonder: What is the point? Why am I doing the same things over and over again when there will always be more to do?
Today I’m replenishing our granola reserve, which the boys love as an easy breakfast or snack with some of the raw milk we get from a local farm. I have a recipe for it over on the blog if you’d like to try it, although fair warning: I typically just throw in a little bit of whatever I happen to find in the pantry when I’m refilling the bucket. It’s one of those simple, ordinary things I make over and over again because it’s useful—and honestly, that’s a lot of what homemaking looks like.
The Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Thessalonians:
And to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 ESV
I love that God’s Word doesn’t apologize for a quiet life. It doesn’t treat ordinary faithfulness as something we settle for when we couldn’t do something more impressive; it actually tells us to aspire to it.
There is something deeply Christian about faithfully tending to the life God has actually given you. The dishes, the meals, the laundry, the cleaning—these things may not feel significant, but they are ways we love and serve the people God has placed in our care. This is good work, even when it doesn’t feel like important work.
And I think this is where I have to make an important distinction: the work matters, but the work does not determine my worth. My value isn’t found in how clean my house is, how productive I am, or how much I accomplish in a day. My worth was settled long before I ever washed a dish or folded a basket of laundry. So I can faithfully do this ordinary work without needing it to prove that I am valuable, or believing that my productivity determines whether I’m living in the will of God.
Motherhood & Homeschooling: What If God Is Using the Small Things to Shape Us?
We started a new unit study this past week after finishing our Living off the Land pioneer unit, and with that comes closing down things like this section of our yearly portfolio and starting up new things like our new handwriting booklet. Our new copywork booklet is based on Matthew 28:16-20, and the boys will hopefully slowly be memorizing this section of scripture. It’s a small thing, but I’m finding that it’s incredibly powerful when done consistently.
I think this is especially true in motherhood because motherhood is almost entirely made up of small things. There are the big moments—birthdays, first steps, graduations, special family memories—but most of our parenting journey happens somewhere in between those moments: making breakfast, correcting the same behavior for the fiftieth time, helping with a math lesson, reading another book, comforting a child, or teaching them how to apologize and make something right.
So much of it feels small while we’re actually living it. You don’t usually finish a Tuesday afternoon thinking, That was a deeply significant day in the spiritual formation of my children. You usually think, Well, we made it through Tuesday.
But that’s where Zechariah 4:10 becomes so beautiful: “Do not despise these small beginnings.” What if we’ve learned to not despise small things simply because they’re small? What if, as Christian moms, we’re measuring our worth by outcomes we can’t possibly see yet, instead of trusting God’s promises and faithfully doing the work He’s given us?
And this is another place where I need to remember that the work matters, but the work does not determine my worth. My worth as a mother isn’t measured by how well my children behave, how much they learn, or whether I can see the fruit of my labor. I can love them, teach them God’s Word, and faithfully walk out the will of God without needing motherhood to prove that I am enough.
When You Feel Like You’re Failing: What If God Sees Something You Can’t?
This is probably the part of this message that I’m preaching most directly to myself. Because when you’ve been through difficult circumstances, and then another difficult season, and you’re already tired, it doesn’t take much for you to start questioning everything.
I’ve found myself doing that lately. Maybe I’m not a good enough mother. Maybe I’m not a good wife. Maybe I should be doing more, handling all of this better, or somehow finding a reserve of energy that I simply don’t have. And when you’ve heard things about yourself that aren’t true, it can be surprisingly difficult not to start questioning yourself anyway.
I’ve had to remind myself that I don’t have to build my identity around what other people say about me. I also don’t have to build my identity around how well I think I’m performing on any given day. There are days when I feel like I’m doing a wonderful job, and there are days when I’m exhausted, impatient, behind on everything, and wondering how we’re going to make it through dinner.
My feelings about my performance are not a very reliable measurement of my faithfulness, and neither are the opinions of other people. God’s Word gives me a much firmer place to stand than either of those things. My job is not to prove to everyone that I’m a good mother; my job is to faithfully love the children God has given me. My job isn’t to make my home look impressive; it’s to faithfully care for the people God has placed inside it.
And I think that’s where the gospel-centered reminder becomes so important: my worth was never something I had to earn through good motherhood, a clean home, productivity, or getting everything right. My Heavenly Father doesn’t love me more on my good days or less on my bad days. My worth is found in Christ, and the peace of God comes when I remember that I don’t have to constantly prove that I’m enough. The same is true for you my dear sister.
I don’t need to prove that I’m doing enough; I need to remember what God has actually asked me to do today, trust Him with what I cannot control, and faithfully walk in the right direction He’s given me.
Faithfulness: What If I Don’t Have to See the Fruit for It to Matter?
I think this is where I’m finally landing. I may not know what God is doing with every small thing, and I may not see the fruit of every prayer, lesson, meal, correction, or act of service. But I don’t have to see it for it to matter.
We want evidence that our work is making a difference. We want to look back and say, There. That’s why all of this mattered. But so much of the Christian life asks us to trust God with what we cannot see. We plant seeds we may never watch grow, pray prayers we may not see answered the way we expected, and teach truths whose fruit may not become visible for a long time.
So if you’re in a season where your life feels small, don’t despise it. If your days feel repetitive or your work is unseen, that doesn’t mean it is unimportant. If you’re washing the same dishes, folding the same laundry, teaching the same lesson, correcting the same behavior, and making the same meals again, God sees you, and He sees the work of your own hands.
My worth isn’t found in how much I accomplish; my true strength lies in Christ, and I can trust Him with the things I cannot see.
Maybe the ordinary things aren’t interruptions to the important things. Maybe they are the important things. Loving our families, tending our homes, teaching our children, serving our churches, and faithfully walking with Christ may not look impressive from the outside, but that doesn’t make them insignificant in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.
Maybe this is the work.
And maybe one day, whether in this life or on the day of Christ Jesus, we’ll see more clearly what God was doing through the small things we couldn’t see at the time. Until then, we don’t have to despise the ordinary. Small does not mean meaningless, and faithfulness does not require us to see the fruit.
We can simply trust the power of Christ, keep doing the right things God has placed in front of us, and leave the results in His hands.
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