Real Life

My birthday was a few days ago. From the outside looking it, it was much like any other day. Same sweet kids to feed and read to and love on, same laundry to fold, dishes to wash, clothes to iron. My husband did a lovely job of making it a day of joy an celebration, but when you're a mom and a housewife, the work is rarely ever finished and a birthday is still a day. 

As I stood over the steaming iron, pressing the wrinkles from one of my husband's shirts, I thought about Jesus and what His days were like. I would describe most of my days as mundane. Blessed and beautiful, yes, and mundane. His were anything but. We rarely see Jesus engaging in regular human activities such as eating and sleeping. When He does those actions are part of a larger context that tells the grander story. Cogs in the machine. We know Jesus was God and man, so we know He ate and drank, and even suffered criticism for it at times. But so much of Jesus that we see in the Gospels is God - healing, forgiving, resurrecting, teaching. As a housewife engaged in every day chores, even on my birthday, I found it hard to identify with Jesus and His days, to be conformed to His likeness through the sameness and utility of my work. 

The good news in the midst of my mundane is that Jesus, through His ministry, both saved me from and to this beautiful life I live. Because Jesus is my extraordinary Savior, I am free to live an ordinary life. The work I do does not define who I am, nor does it provide my worth or salvation. Jesus does all of that. As a follower of Jesus I'm delivered from my definition of self, by losing my life in His. 

The life I'm living now, as much as I am thankful for it and as much as I invest in it, is only temporary. My real life is hidden in Christ. And we all know that hidden things are precious. Christ treasures my true life and safeguards it until the day He appears in all of His radiant glory, and bestows the best gift of all. That day will be my true birthday, when I see Him as He is and finally become who I was created to be. 

Until then I fold laundry and wash dishes and love children even as my heart whispers: Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!