The Enormous Significance of Small Tasks

Today I found myself becoming irritated because I have writing to do, and instead I was coaxing a toddler to sit on the toilet. For just one moment the attitude hit hard that I have more important things to do, and as that thought hung in the air over my frazzled, middle- aged, graying head, I felt my stomach drop. Instant repentance washed over me, and I know Jesus heard the silent cry of my heart: Lord, forgive me.

It’s easy to forget the unimaginable importance of mundane motherhood. It’s so simple to start viewing other, more interesting things as more important or more worthy of your time, talents, creativity.

The early years of parenting, while they can be entertaining, are mostly repetition of the same tasks over and over and over again.

What is so important about wiping rear ends, washing cups, cleaning up messes? What is so essential about reading kids’ books, letting toddler music take over, going outside where at least one meltdown is sure to occur? What is the big deal about the dozens of times a day you give instructions, make demands, threaten consequences, dole out consequences?

I could name so many aspects of everyday parenting that can end up feeling like a neverending merry- go-round. Where is the importance?

You see, it isn’t enough to say that spiritual formation is the only important part. Spiritual formation is essential, no question, but if that’s the only place where we find the importance of this task, then 90% of what we’re doing each day is not important. There’s only so much a three year old can learn about theology and spiritual worldview in a day, and the rest of the day is goldfish cracker explosions and potty training and buckling car seats. If changing the toddler’s messy shirt for the third time today doesn’t teach her a single jot of catechism, then wouldn’t my time be better spent doing some “important” writing?

Never! Because here’s an absolute truth of the human race: being cared for by a mother forms us in ways that will shape who we are for a lifetime. It doesn’t matter one bit that my twenty year old doesn’t remember a single thing about being three. She doesn’t remember how often I wiped her face or how many times I told her to put her toys away. She doesn’t remember the times we did battle over naps. She doesn’t remember the snacks I set before her or the games I taught her to play. She doesn’t have any idea how many times I sat up at night with her when she was sick.

Three years old is not stored in her memory. But the way I made her feel is preserved in her heart, her soul, her mind. The love that she received through those mundane, day to day tasks has left an indelible imprint on who she is today. The work that I may have been tempted to view as too small to matter has built a woman who now calls me up to tell me about the ways God is working in her life.

Now I am back in the trenches of three years old. Back where the tasks are so numerous, but so small. Where I may sometimes worry that I have little to show for all of the exhaustion that I feel. But then I remember that every mundane task is an act of love, and there’s nothing more important in this world for me to be doing than loving my child, with all of my heart, all of my energy, with all openness and gratitude. Every little task, every nose wipe and every trampled crumb, is a picture of the great love of God that I am called to communicate to my children. That love matters, more than any words I could write, more than any impact that I could make outside of the walls of this house.

When I die and my children form a eulogy in their own hearts, what I want them to find there is love above all, even love that they have no conscious memory of, because that love was their first taste of the glory of God.