Praise To My Wife On Mother’s Day

{ Here's Jamie this past Sunday with some one year-olds. We tried to build one of these contraptions for The Three Amigos (Lynch Boys)…but they gnawed through it in an hour. }

  I don’t usually go on Facebook to publicly praise my wife, flirt with her and tell her she’s beautiful, tell her she’s a great wife, or tell the world of some little thing she’s done. I try to do those things every day, not because I should do it to be a good husband—but because she really does do praiseworthy things (like dealing with three little “Mini-Me’s” capitalizing on my worst traits), because she’s still really hot to me (have you seen her?!!), because she patiently, humbly, and lovingly lives out the role of a Godly wife even though she’s living with a weird person like me (have you met me?) {Eph. 5:22-24}, and because she doesn’t need the praise of others to bring fulfillment.

  I had several calls, texts, and Facebook messages over the weekend letting us know that people were praying for Jamie and myself during this Mother’s Day weekend. They were all concerned about how difficult it might be for Jamie after losing the baby so recently. I wondered how she would do that morning and how she would do at church. We also had a Parent/Child Dedication that morning as one of our Milestones for parents. I wondered how she would handle the combination of Mother’s Day and several mothers with their beautiful little gifts from God being dedicated to God. As I was backstage with the parents getting them ready for this Milestone I was halted myself at these three precious little girls (which we had been hoping for!). 

  Jamie understands, though difficult at times, that she did nothing to deserve to lose a baby. And at the same time she knows she could do nothing to deserve to teach other’s children about the God who has saved her. 

       She did nothing to deserve saving grace. She was content serving herself when Christ pursued her and the Holy Spirit opened her eyes to see Him as supreme. She’s captivated by this Christ. He captured her heart another day of loss as she sat at her own sixteen-year-old brother’s funeral. She realized that day that it was not an option to live for herself and her own small pursuits in life—but to live for something much more grand and glorious. 

  I met Jamie one month after her brother lost his life to a drunk driver. We were at a campus ministry and she ended up standing next to me. As she stood in worship that night I had no idea of the recent loss to her family until afterwards. After that meeting, as I talked about her and her heart for worship, our mutual friend, Brittain, who introduced us, told me she had just lost her brother. Immediately I began to think through whether I would be worshiping like that if my teen sibling had been killed. Somehow, Christ sustains and secures a heart and stabilizes it in the middle of those times of sorrow, grief, and loss. That was one of the things that immediately attracted me to her--a heart of worship in a time when that heart could tend to be self-focused. 

• What might be the most difficult place for a mother to serve who had recently had a late miscarriage? Wouldn’t you want to keep her far away from the nursery or baby area? 

  Due to some people having to miss on Mother’s Day in order to spend time with their own families, we were a few people short in the preschool area. And as Providence would have it—Jamie found herself in the one year-old's class during our second service. As I walked by, I paused to watch her interacting with these little ones. 

  God has different plans many times in life. God knows intimately more about us and what we can handle. And God knows what can be allowed to bring healing when it seems like it might be a painful situation. People handle grief and loss differently. She handles it by depending on grace, on loan, from an all-sufficient Savior. 

• Here are some of the words from Proverbs 31 that I used on our wedding day that I thought fit her well. Since that time, others have also attributed these to her as well. 

(Prov. 31:25-31)

        "Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates."

        I believe these words of Scripture are not something we look to as standards that we try to muster up self-discipline in order to live out. That would be us being sufficient for our own Godliness. Instead, I believe God grants us these inner qualities as a person learns to look to Him repeatedly in difficult times and even painful situations. In this sense, we learn to be more dependent and praiseworthy towards Him instead of self-sufficient in dependence on our own strength. So as this Psalm proclaims, "Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her." 

  Jamie didn’t see Mother’s Day as a day she was entitled to comfort or relaxation. She didn’t see it as a day to hold her fist at God because she was entitled to an ongoing pregnancy as she taught other little children about Him. She knows He doesn’t deal conditionally with us. His love and grace are completely unconditional. She saw it as a day where a 2nd-grade class at 9:30 and a one year-old's class at 11:00 needed to know about this magnificent Jesus.

  She’s no saint just because she taught a couple of classes on Mother's Day. I'm not writing this to pridefully show off her strength. Just the opposite in fact. I want to highlight and point to an understanding of true humility. Humility that understands serving others in the light of loss. Christ, in facing incredible personal loss and anguish of soul, considered the cross and what it would produce to more worthy than removing Himself from it's pain.  Christ and His worth being communicated to little souls in need of His grace is greater than one's own loss. Jamie learned this from staring at this man, Jesus, and what He did in her place at the cross. 

Praise To Christ My King for My Wife

        If not for Christ, I would never have met Jamie. If not for Christ, I would not have desired a woman who passionately pursues Christ. If not for Christ, our marriage would be a mess. If not for Christ, we would have nothing to point our children to other than selfish pleasures and personal successes. If not for Christ, we would have no unity in the cross to run to in difficult times. If not for Christ, loss would be devastating. Christ holds the universe together, including hearts going through difficulty on days that should be celebration. 

Sankie P. Lynch

www.nbchurch.info

www.nbfamilies.info

sankie@nbchurch.info