{"id":9336,"date":"2022-02-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/sermon-reflection-jesus-and-the-seven-churches\/"},"modified":"2022-06-15T14:56:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T06:56:27","slug":"sermon-reflection-jesus-and-the-seven-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/sermon-reflection-jesus-and-the-seven-churches\/","title":{"rendered":"Sermon Reflection – Jesus and the Seven Churches"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Posted by Adeliyn Lim \u2022 Feb 21, 2022<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

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Being a mother is a job with no rest, especially those who choose to forgo their careers and choose to be stay-at-home mothers. I was reminded of this while chatting with fellow stay-at-home mothers recently.  We expressed how envious we were of husbands who had time to play on their phones during lunch and toilet breaks at work, and be able to eat lunch and dinner in peace. We lamented together how some people around us think that we had lots of leisure time at home, when we barely have time to rest, much less eat or shower. It seemed every minute of our days were occupied by our children – feeding, playing, teaching, cleaning, handling their various emotions and nonsensical meltdowns. Even when they are resting, we are still at work – cleaning up, planning and organizing ahead, beating ourselves up for not being at the standard we want to be at. We are so busy and so conditioned to not get help from the people around us, that by the time we realize, we are nearing our wits end and screaming for a shred of comfort or help. We barely have the presence of mind to process how we were actually doing, or how much unnecessary pressure we were mounting on the automatons we became in the name of motherhood. <\/span><\/p>\n

This message this weekend is heavy in its rebuke. But it also offers a welcoming and comforting message. Jesus is at the door. He is knocking to invite Himself in. He is already walking alongside us. In that chaos of juggling household demands and the endlessly needy lives of our babies and toddlers, He is there listening to the prayers behind our tears and the incomprehensible noise coming from our bodies when desperation is at its peak (Romans 8:26-27). For as many there are that nitpick every single thing we do, declaring how we are a burden to our spouses and ruining our children, there are defenders who help us reevaluate the noise and take in only what is helpful. We have people willing to journey with us for a short time by providing words of comfort, food, basic house cleaning, or taking over for a few hours to let us do something unrelated to children. In our cry for acceptance and understanding, prayers never spoken are answered in the form of fellow new mothers banding together to give words to our feelings and see again the joys. Understanding spouses and friends help us center again as individuals before being just a mother, and offer a chance to look at everything we struggle with from a different angle, away from the children. <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite feeling that the passion I once had is now a dying ember, despite feeling like a robot, despite feeling like a disappointment for always being too tired and that I’m never enough for God or family – I see His rebuke in this message, but I also see His love for me and my family. I see His warning, but also His guiding hands to step on the track again. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being a mother is a job with no rest, especially those who choose to forgo their careers and choose to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9374,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336\/revisions\/9374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}