Who am I besides a Mum and Wife?

This post will probably be a bit off piste, but I wanted to write it so that my children and future grandchildren might know a little more about who I am, besides my obvious roles.

I think a woman who home educates, wears a head covering and has ten children might well be stereotyped, and that’s understandable but I’d like to share a little more about me, perhaps to help extinguish the myth that mums like me are attached to the kitchen sink and have no mind of our own.

It’s true that there’s never a moment when there isn’t a task I could do for the family; there’s always a dishwasher to stack or stories to be read or endless tidying and cleaning, but each day I intentionally stop. No one was created to work round the clock and as my mother used to say, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. So for my mother’s sake and for my own sanity I press pause each day. I aim for a quiet time in the afternoon and sometimes one in the evening.

I have my Bible time in the morning and so the afternoon quiet time is free for my own personal interests. I love to sew and create, but lately I’ve been reading and researching. I broke my elbow when I was a child and it was set in the wrong position, the surgeon said it would last until my forties and then it might cause some discomfort. He was spot on, since I was about 41 I’ve noticed it aches from time to time and sewing can exacerbate it. So reading has become my go to activity of choice.

I’m not a big fiction reader, fiction based on factual events can grasp my interest, but my preference are historical biographies. I am particularly gripped by the stories of the Holocaust, stories of the hidden heroes, the courageous few who stood against the prevailing winds and chose to do the right thing, even when it cost them everything.

When I was a little girl, maybe about nine, our family visited Oradour-sur-Glane in France. It is a village in France which has been left as it was in 1944, when it was destroyed by the Nazis. I’ll never forget the burnt out pram, riddled with bullet holes, in the church which they also burnt down. All bar seven villagers were massacred that day and still no one knows why.

As a child I remember visiting Herculaneum, near Pompeii, and this place struck me as sad, but it was a natural disaster, not one brought about by human hands.

The horror of Oradour-Sur-Glane touched my heart and has stuck with me ever since, reminding me that humans are capable of great evil, especially if they believe they are doing it for the ‘greater good’.

The stories that captivate me the most, are of women who refused to do nothing in the face of evil. Sophie Scholl, Irene Sendler, Elisabeth “Bep” Voskuijl and Corrie Ten Boom, these women did what they could with what they had.

Their stories remind me of the stories in the Bible, for example, when God asked David to use his sling, Moses his staff, Aaron his voice or the little boy his loaves and fish. God didn’t ask them to do something that he hadn’t equipped them for, he just asks them to trust him and not to fear. We don’t need anything special to do God’s will, we just need to trust him to help us to use that which he has already given us.

I have always been a bit of a black sheep, I can’t just comply because everyone else is. This showed most distinctly during the lockdowns. I saw many people enjoying the peace of not going to work and the sunshine and inside I was screaming, how could they be so happy when there were children locked in flats with abusive, alcoholic parents, or parents at the edge of their capacity, being pushed over the edge, or elderly couples being separated after 70 years and dying alone? I understood the fear people felt but I was more afraid for those children whom nobody seemed to notice. The news spoke of the casualties of the disease, but not of the hidden casualties brought on by the measures. These are the ones I felt called to speak for, the forgotten children.

It’s not easy seeing the world from this perspective, it will set me apart, but I can’t unsee that which God makes me aware of. Instead I pray he will help me to do something useful with the skills he has given me.

As I write, I think, and I ask him what next? How can I serve him today? Who can I encourage? I can’t bear the thought of a wasted life. We only have one stab at each day, I am reminded that I was bought at a price, the cost of Christ’s death, and I want to honour him with my service. This isn’t intending to be ‘holier than thou’ for I fail every day to reach my own standards, let alone God’s, but it’s where I’m aiming for, not because I want to be remembered, but I want to make a difference.

I don’t know where my thoughts will take me next, but do follow along if you want to hear more of my musings.