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When You Think It’s Too Hard to Serve Outside Your Home

In these little years, it can be easy to convince myself it’s not practical to serve outside my home. I (Laura) have three under five who have only one (incredibly loud) vocal setting, and their favorite hobby is running in circles while holding breakable items.

But the truth is, I can’t serve inside my home without serving outside my home. What I mean is, a vital part of raising my children to know and love the Lord is showing them that loving God means loving others. So while you likely won’t find us at a soup kitchen in this season, you will find us doing seemingly small things in the home that matter outside of it.

Right now, one way that looks is making meals for new moms, the sick, or the elderly. Sometimes, it’s for complete strangers. We head to the store to pick up ingredients, talking about how “these are not for us; they’re for someone in need.” It takes forever to make the meal, and there’s lots of taste testing and a massive mess at the end. I literally plan an entire morning for it. We talk about how we’re not going to eat the cookies we baked or the cider we bought, or the sausage in the lasagna—someone in need is. We talk about being Jesus’s hands and feet and how the gospel is played out in the everyday making of meals and care packages.

While it sounds trivial, it’s a hard lesson for small children. We drive to the house and drop it off, stopping to talk for a few minutes, the kids wondering why we don’t go inside or play with toys. We get back in the car and talk about how people sometimes go through hard things and how bringing a meal is a way of loving them through it. We talk about wanting to be generous with our time, money, and talents. That we should use the things God has blessed us with to bless others.

It’s simple stuff, but I pray it will make a profound impact on their future.

These little years are not “lost ministry” years; they’re a chance to get creative with how we serve as mothers, knowing this time is a training ground for our children, a launchpad for them to begin to understand what a lifetime of godly service and ministry looks like in the everyday.

Because to serve the inside, you have to serve the outside too.

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