Come listen in as I discuss with Michele Morin living out our days from chaos to mundane and duty to dreams.  Michele knows the struggles of a mother’s heart.  She offers encouragement, solidarity and even tips to not just get through our days but live out each moment as we want to be known.

The Hidden Ministry of Homemaking – Michele Morin

Journaling Questions:

• Michele said she is trying to answer the question “How can I live today in the way that I want to have said when all is said and done that I have lived my life?”
• What kind of person do you want to be known as?
• Are you making these decisions toward that end?
• Are you pursuing a reputation more than pursuing God?
• What is your next step of trust in this area?

Want more journaling questions? Sign up here to receive your free, 5 day journaling tool to help explore your next step to trusting God more fully.

I want to hear from you!
You can find me and join in the conversation on Facebook and Instagram @stepstotrusting.

Connect with Michele michelemorin.net

Hashtag your story of God’s faithfulness and stepping out in faith. #stepstotrusting

Verses mentioned in the episode:

• Lamentations 3:22-23
• Ephesians 2:10
• Psalm 90

Quotes:

Amy Carmichael “A cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how suddenly jarred.” – Amy Carmichael in If: What do I know of Calvery

GK Chesterton – Orthodoxy

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

See below for a full transcript of the show.

[00:00:00] Hi, this is Erin Michelle.

[00:00:05] Erin: Welcome to steps to trust. It is my goal here at steps to trusting, to meet you where you are in your faith journey, and to encourage you to continue to take steps, to trusting the Lord more fully.

[00:00:16] Friends. This is going to be an excellent episode

[00:00:19] We were discussing our attitude towards the mundane, small and unseen moments in our lives. I’m sure this will apply to a lot of you, but for moms out there, this challenge is close to many of our hearts. If you’ve ever struggled with feeling like what you are doing is unseen mundane, repetitive, or unimportant, this conversation is for you.

[00:00:44] The conversation is with Michele Morin. Michele is a wife, a mom, and she also goes by the name of bam to three adorable grandchildren. She is active in her church, writing, speaking, and teaching.

[00:00:59] When I hear Michelle’s heart come through in her writing, I feel that she understands the struggles that I feel in my own heart. I’m thankful to welcome to the show, Michelle Morin.

[00:01:09] Let’s jump right in.

[00:01:10] Michelle, as I have gone through and read some of your writing, I see a theme running through the articles. It touches on mundane and repetitive actions.

[00:01:20] Can you tell us a little bit about how this became intertwined in your writing?

[00:01:24] I’ve been a mom for 27 years and I left my job to do it. And so I’m working that out still. The productivity thing and if I get to the end of the day and I don’t have any check marks, did I still have a day?

[00:01:37] You know, that kind of question. Do I exist if I don’t do anything? That’s a theme that shows up in my writing all the time. Maybe fortunately, maybe, unfortunately I’m not sure which.

[00:01:48] Well, it’s encouraging to hear, it’s something that you’ve constantly thought about, but challenging to know, it’s not something that just goes away.

[00:01:55] Michele: right. We deal with it at different points. In our life now I have grandchildren that come to my house and so I mark off a day. I know that that is a day devoted to grandchildren and I’m not going to get a whole lot else done. And I just have to reckon with that. That’s part of being a doer, I think.

[00:02:12] Erin: Is that still hard?

[00:02:13] Michele: Oh, it is.

[00:02:13] Erin: yeah, still.

[00:02:15] Michele: I love being with them. I love every minute and I would not have it any other way. But no death to self it’s like negative numbers. It’s not anything at all, but it’s still a death to self. You know, we pour our life out in little droplets before the Lord.

[00:02:28] And that’s one that I really feel, that knowledge and I’m going to go into a day and I’m going to spend it coloring and painting and pushing somebody on the swing and making messes. And it takes three times as long to make cookies with kids as it does to make them when you’re just whipping them up yourself.

[00:02:45] But of course, that’s part of the process where you love doing something with them. And what you’re really doing is building memories and chords of connection between that little person so that you’ve got things in common to talk about. And they know that they’re a priority. And so, you know, the cliche is the kids spell love T I M E.

[00:03:05] Erin: Yeah. Well, it is interesting to hear that it’s a similar struggle, even as a grandparent, in reading your writing, but also in hearing you say that, like, I just I’m like, yeah, I’m in that. But I want to do the, all the things and be present with them. And yet at the same time, I want to do things that I feel like God has called me to do and put on my heart.

[00:03:27] Michele: It’s a challenge and it keeps us from making something into an idol. you know, our hearts are a little idol factories and we can make an idol out of anything. And I think my work has been one of the things that has always been an Idol for me. Even if it’s just the work of the garden, making sure that the weeds are out of the garden. Well, is that really as important as taking time to sit down and read a story to somebody who is misbehaving, because they haven’t had good attention that day and you just need to focus on them, they need your eyes on them for some time, just to, to feel important and loved.

[00:04:04] And so it’s, one of those things we have to lay down all the time.

[00:04:08] Erin: Definitely, it’s so much of, what is on a mother’s heart and I hear it even, you saying it as it’s something also on a grandparent’s heart. How do we deal with setting aside things that seem important for things that seem small and unseen.

[00:04:26] You know, that this podcast is called steps to trusting and I wonder as you look back at your life and learning how to persevere in those small, unseen times, how would you describe your steps to trusting or some of the steps that you’ve taken along the way to trust God in those moments that feel unseen or that you feel unseen?

[00:04:51] Michele: Well, that’s a really good question. That’s very big picture. I think some of it has been the importance of just establishing good habits. Because when, when we’re weak, we fall back on our habits, whether good or bad. If we don’t have good habits, we fall into whatever addiction or whatever self pity or whatever our unhealthy habit is.

[00:05:17] But if we’ve got a good foundation of just truth in our life. Constantly, you know it’s hard when kids are young to have a quiet, anything, nevermind. A quiet time. And so you might as well not even call it that. I can remember. Well, I always sat right here where I am right now at the dining room table for devotions or for anything, because it was like a command post.

[00:05:41] I could see out the window. If they’re on the front yard, I could see upstairs to the landing. So if they’re upstairs, I could see them. Whatever movement was going on with there, I could see the living room, I could see the kitchen. So I was aware of what was going on around me, but I was also deeply communing with God.

[00:05:56] It felt chaotic back in those days. But, looking back, that was a significant thing for me. It was that I had those habits of holiness established. And it didn’t always look the same every day, but it was an appointment with God. And I think even just having a place where you go because God made us so that we have muscle memory.

[00:06:16] So when we’re sitting in that particular chair, we know, oh, okay. This is what I do. I reach for this book. I opened to this bookmark and I pick up where I left off yesterday. And, oh, I don’t even remember what I read yesterday. So let’s reread. For me, scripture reading has been kind of a slow slog.

[00:06:32] I think I’d rather go deep rather than wide. And so it’s might take me six months to get through first and second Peter. Because I might read, five verses every day for a week and then move on

[00:06:43] to the next five verses. And then like spend another whole week just reading that chapter again to make sure

[00:06:48] I got the context of everything. And that doesn’t feel very monumental.

[00:06:53] And you look at your life and you think, well, wow, all I’ve read in this last six months is first and second Peter. Wow. It doesn’t feel very great, but at least, you know, you’re, you’re covering that ground and you’re covering it well, and you’re learning the lessons that there are within it, rather than just plowing through to say, the goal is to get to the end.

[00:07:13] Well, that’s not much of a goal when you think about it. I try to supplement that kind of reading.

[00:07:18] Right now, for instance, I’m praying through the Psalms. So most days I read in addition to first, Peter, I also will read either a Psalm or a part of a Psalm and, and think of it as a prayer because I need that in my prayer life.

[00:07:32] I don’t always have my own words, my own words. Aren’t always as productive as I want them to be. And so I think of things to pray about by reading what the Psalmist prayed back in the day when he was writing. That’s another habit that is kind of keeping me grounded. And then I also in my pile. I’ve got my Bible and I my journal and then I’ve got a hymnal. So I try to read a hymn every day and I try to read it not sing it. I try to think of the words and try to find one phrase that just really speaks to me. All I do is I write down that phrase. I don’t watch eloquent about it. I don’t push myself to think anything other than just what is there in this hymn that will serve as devotional material for me to help me think in a different way about God, than I would on my own.

[00:08:17] because we get in ruts ourselves, you know?

[00:08:20] So those habits have been really important, informative for me. Just to keep me honest with where I am with God. So that my mind has someplace to go. That’s good when I’m feeling stressed or when I’m feeling negative or when I’m tempted to fear. It’s a conscious thing to choose what we think about.

[00:08:41] And that’s sometimes hard. But that’s, that’s been helpful for me.

[00:08:45] Erin: Yeah, as I hear you talk about those as habits, I also hear it’s a discipline. It’s a thing that you choose to do over and over and how important that is to make it a part of your life and choose to do it. How would you describe how God has used your devotion and your time with him to affect your time with your children or time with your family?

[00:09:11] Michele: Well, it’s certainly given me an eternal perspective on life. And it gives me fuel to even address discipline in their life. We step into obedience every day and it looks pretty mundane. We do the next thing. That’s, a buzzword now, but that phrase is it’s important to kids because they have to do their chores and they have to do their spelling list, they have to feed the dog. There’s things that they might not prefer to do, but we all have to step into obedience. That’s been some of it with how it’s shown up in my mothering and my writing. And I have said before that, if it weren’t for all the things that I classify as interruptions I wouldn’t have a thing to write about. Because my life is lived in those interruptions. It’s not lived when I’m sitting here at the dining room table with all my books around me. And, I’m just in this wonderful space of chasing down the right adverb, that’s not my life. That’s when I get to actually process my life.

[00:10:14] Life is when you’re trying to weed the garden, but somebody let the dog out. And you’ve got to go chase the dog down. It’s just all the interruptions and the phone call that comes when you least expect it. It’s in that chaos. That God is, is walking beside us. he’s informing our thoughts by his Spirit. He’s with us in that. And what we bring into it is what happens while we’re, while we’re living.

[00:10:39] Amy Carmichael said, and I won’t get this exactly right. But she said had a cup of sweet milk, no matter how hard it’s jostled will never, ever spill one drop of sour milk. Because it’s full of sweet milk.

[00:10:54] There have been days in my mothering life when I have been full of a lot of things, but not sweetness. And it’s because I wasn’t going back to the source. And let me just say too, that I don’t say that with judgment, because I know that when you’re in the trenches of mothering, there are days when you just need to give yourself all kinds of grace and apologize to your kids. And I have sent myself for timeouts before and closed my bedroom door and laid on my face on the bedroom floor, to just get my act together. Because there are days when our kids, they know the buttons to push. They know how to just frustrate things.

[00:11:34] And sometimes that’s happened. Sometimes kids get to us and we need to take the grace that God offers. Take the forgiveness. Confession, is a powerful thing. When our kids hear us say, we’re sorry, and we name the sin that we’ve sinned and ask for their forgiveness. They understand that, it runs both ways that when they wrong us, they can also say, they’re sorry, and that we’ll forgive them too. So sometimes it’s not pretty.

[00:12:01] Erin: That’s very true. And it’s such a beautiful reminder that, you said, I don’t say that with judgment because you’ve stood there. You understand what it’s like to have that chaos come at you. And that’s just a beautiful reminder for people to turn to God and to not dig into their failure or let shame come.

[00:12:23] Michele: right or to get caught up in the Instagram image of this is how my life should look because this celebrity’s life looks this way. And, you know, they’ve, they’ve styled all their perfectly matching mugs on the table and they’ve got nail Polish on and everything looks so perfect and we think, well, what is wrong with me?

[00:12:41] Why can’t I get my act together? But we’re not living on Instagram. We’re living on the earth and it’s pretty Rocky ground sometimes that we walk.

[00:12:50] Erin: As you were talking, you said a couple of times talking about the chaos that’s around us. I actually wanted to read a little clip from one of your articles that is found on desiring God. The name of the article is the hidden mystery of homemaking.

[00:13:06] What I learned from Elizabeth Elliott. And I’m going to go ahead and link that in the show notes so that you guys can go ahead and find that there,

[00:13:13] You said “in our ordinary chores and the act of corralling chaos into order. We image God, organizing a cluttered closet, sanitizing, a nasty highchair tray, distributing clean and folded laundry to the four corners of the house. These are as quietly mundane as the work God does in our time to water the trees with rain or in history to arrange for the manna that faithfully fed a generation of Israelites.

[00:13:47] I was so very struck by that.

[00:13:49] Michele: good.

[00:13:50] Erin: can you tell us a little bit about those words and what they mean to you?

[00:13:54] Michele: Well, I’ve been focusing lately on the word tend and God is a tender because and, and I know it’s upon and upon is the lowest form of humor, but God is tender towards us too. You know, he tends us tenderly. I like thinking about that, how he tends to us and when he was tending to the Israelites in the wilderness, that manna has showed up every day. The quail showed up every day.

[00:14:24] GK Chesterton in his orthodoxy, it’s a book he wrote talks about how God makes the sunrise every day. It’s possible that he just said every morning rise and it does. And every Daisy is individually formulated with the number of pedals that he decides it’s going to have and every tulip and every individual flower.

[00:14:45] And, and when you think about the intricacy of nature and how God tends to things. That’s mundane. Routine. Especially in a mothering life. Every morning something’s got to show up on the table for breakfast, whether you feel like eating it or not. The laundry is going to pile up and you better, it’s the same process every single time.

[00:15:05] And even the, the calendar, you know, the birthdays, there’s gotta be a cake. With us, it was a big scavenger hunt. That is life-giving and wonderful. And it’s also very routine and very mundane.

[00:15:18] It just feels sometimes like it’s perpetual. That we image God, when we faithfully show up. Even in the annual routines of our church. If we are faithful to show up for vacation Bible school. Every single year, it’s the same old thing. But that’s got to happen and there’s gotta be a mom there to make the cookies and to make sure that there are fun games to play.

[00:15:40] And so we enter into that mundane routine. But it’s very life-giving and that’s what it was for God. showed up with manna and quail in the wilderness for his people. He provided water when they needed it. And we get to image him in our families as we help to provide to them in that way.

[00:15:59] Erin: I was thinking, even when you were saying how he could just say rise and have the sun rise each morning. But I’ve spent some time contemplating the skys too, and just thinking of how in his creation, he still brings beauty that’s different and unique every morning. Right. You know, and as it says in Lamentations, your mercies are new every morning.

[00:16:22] As you’re saying that and thinking about God and routine and putting those two things, images were coming together in my mind that image of God enters into this routine faithfully. And he does it with beauty and with joy. And I

[00:16:36] think like when you go, like, okay, here’s the breakfast on the table every morning, we could just do it with here’s the same breakfast on the table every morning.

[00:16:44] Or we could do it with joy and with beauty and creation in that.

[00:16:49] Michele: Right.

[00:16:50] Erin: Yeah. And that to me is beautiful and so challenging

[00:16:57] because if we’re, yeah,

[00:16:58] if we’re going to be honest about breakfast being the thing that is coming up, like I’m like, okay, go get your cereal. And they do it themselves, so I make other meals.

[00:17:08] But I dunno, that’s not something that I do with creating beauty and joy. My husband also makes really good breakfast, but I don’t

[00:17:16] Michele: Oh, that’s nice.

[00:17:17] Erin: This idea like I said, it’s very impactful to me because I think often when I’ve been told in other places, we should do as if onto the Lord, I think that’s right.

[00:17:29] And that’s good. And that’s important. But this concept of thinking, I get to imitate God in mundane. God lives out mundane. He doesn’t say, Erin, you go be in mundane and I’m going to go and do something completely different.

[00:17:47] Michele: Right.

[00:17:48] Erin: And I think I get stuck on that feeling. Oh, poor me. I’m doing the same thing that’s going to get undone and then I’ll do it again tomorrow. Instead of realizing that that is a picture of what God does for us every day.

[00:18:05] Michele: Right. And his values are so very different from ours. You know, we think, oh, I’m preparing a talk to give to 150 women. And so therefore this is important. And then, you know, we have to stop this very high and exalted work that we’re doing and go thaw some hamburger for supper. And that doesn’t feel quite as exalted, but, it’s all kind of equal.

[00:18:32] If God’s plan for us in that moment is to thaw hamburger for supper then we better thaw the hamburger from supper. We are more pleasing to God in that act. And we are, if we’re grumbling about it and say, well I guess everybody’s going to have eat cereal for supper tonight because I’m so busy with this talk that I’m preparing.

[00:18:50] I mean, there are times when the boundaries aren’t as clean, because that’s the way life is. But when we show up in ways that are meaningful for our people, then that’s a healthy rhythm for our home. I think I said already before we’re so good at making idols out of, out of everything, we make an idol of our ministry.

[00:19:11] We make an idol out of our time. You know, this is my time to do this. And I think people my age, especially have to really watch that because we’ve been poured out for all these years. I’ve been 27 years of mothering and now it’s my turn to do what I want to do. Well, I need to watch that because what I really in my heart of hearts want to do is what God wants me to do, and I want to be available to him.

[00:19:34] And so I don’t want to get into this rut where I say, well, I have to do this because I owe it to myself or whatever. I think that’s kind of hogwash.

[00:19:45] Erin: I hear so many similarities in what you’re saying as struggles that have been in my own heart.

[00:19:51] Michele: really,

[00:19:52] Erin: That idea of the idol of time, when you have four, five kids, you know, I think time is such a limited commodity and

[00:20:05] I have become selfish in it. And and right now I’m actually in a place where I’m starting to get time back. And yet I still have all this time and I’m like, well, I’m going to use it for, for me. And the thing that’s twisted in that is that, well for me, what I want to do is please the Lord. I want to write something that pleases the Lord or podcast, or have a conversation with someone that is as onto the Lord. That is pleasing to him.

[00:20:35] And yet there’s this twistedness inside. Like I have to do this for me instead of going, God, what do you have for me today? Because maybe it would look a similar way, but my heart would look different.

[00:20:48] Michele: That’s a great point.

[00:20:50] Erin: I think I spent a lot of years thinking we don’t have idols nowadays, because, there’s not like the golden cow that’s in my house and I mean, other cultures, yes.

[00:21:02] They have physical idols. But about when I started seeing our hearts, like you described it as as idol factories, when I started seeing my own heart like that, I realized how many idols I have in my own heart. Motherhood was one of them. I think God has really been working on, that in me.

[00:21:22] But I think time is another one of them. And so it’s like, there’s almost like these competing idols. And so I feel guilt in both of them . Instead of setting them down and going, okay, God, what is it that you have for me? If I set my mind on him, motherhood is a good thing and time to do things that he’s put on my heart is a good thing, but how do I walk out those steps faithfully?

[00:21:50] Michele: Hmm.

[00:21:51] yeah.

[00:21:51] It’s, it’s in pursuing a passion sometimes that we, we stumble into that idol worship thing, and even our kids, I’ve heard mothers lament the fact that they didn’t take time to. Train their kids to do chores. Like they’ve, they’ve got a grown-up son. That’s never mowed the lawn in his life or never empty the waste faster than his life, because they were so busy pursuing their passions, you know, running to soccer games and piano lessons and whatever it was that there was no time left in the schedule for that slow work of here’s how you wash a sink.

[00:22:23] Here’s how you scrub a dirty toilet, you know, and that takes time. And it’s certainly much more efficient to do it yourself because the kids are going to have water everywhere. And they’re not going to do is put the job, but if they do it enough times and you stand over them enough times and you send them back to redo it, if it’s not done well, enough times, then eventually they do learn to do it.

[00:22:44] And they learn that that’s part of life. And somebody has to be passionate about having a clean bathroom, even if it’s not as cool as being able to play a Mozart Sonata, it’s got to happen. And , if we equip our kids with the idea that. Yes, pursue your passions, but yes, also there’s a home here to be made and we all live in it.

[00:23:08] And so therefore we all need to participate in the upkeep of it, whether that means mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow or carrying their plates to the sink to be washed . There’s goodness in that. And I think that helps us with our little idle factory hearts to relinquish some of that selfishness that comes with pursuing our passions.

[00:23:31] Erin: Can you explain how that is connected? The selfishness of pursuing our passions with the training up of the children.

[00:23:41] Michele: Well, just to model for them that, yes, this is so important to me. I want to write or teach or prepare my lessons or the things that I need to do for ministry, but I also want to stop and make dinner. And I want to sit with you and watch a movie and I’ll make popcorn and this will be fun.

[00:24:00] I can, do both things. I’m not looking at my phone when you’re talking to me . I stop what I’m doing and I closed the book. Because to physically close the book or on my eyes will wander back to the printed page that I want to read and, you know, look at them while they’re talking.

[00:24:18] I still work at that to make sure that when someone’s talking to me that I stop what I’m doing and I look at them. That is an unselfishness. And, I think with our current parenting environment that we have , we want to make sure our kids are good at something and that they can Excel and really earn that trophy.

[00:24:38] Maybe they’re going to some academic pursuit or maybe they’re good at sports or music. And it’s so easy for them to become that rather than who they are, you know, they’re a human doing rather than the human being. And we model that ourselves and then we contribute to it with our kids. By constantly programming them to do things. When there’s an awful lot of goodness to be found in a kid, just sitting in a chair, reading a book, or, or even to the point where they’re, they’re complaining because they’re bored and you can say, yay, wonderful. You have the privilege of boredom.

[00:25:12] Now go find something to do that you wouldn’t have done. If you weren’t bored. Here’s some modeling clay, or here’s a big, messy pile of paint, go make a creative mess somewhere. Or go out in the woods and find something out there to do. it’s Desperation drives children to creativity.

[00:25:30] I think.

[00:25:31] Erin: Yeah. Thank you for going back and going deeper on that, because I think there is something , in modeling out to our kids, that there is importance in, both the pursuing of your dreams and the pursuing of the mundane, not the mundane,

[00:25:48] Michele: Right.

[00:25:49] Erin: but a life and the maintenance of a life.

[00:25:52] There is like maintenance that has to happen for life to look like following the dream. And Even just that is encouraging to me to think that, when you say to go out and go living, you know, living the dream there’s maintenance to, to, to find yourself in living the dream or the passion or the person. Yeah.

[00:26:18] Michele: Right. And we keep our home the way we keep it so that we can be a place for ministry to happen. You know, we can have people in and it’s not. Oh, no, we’re having people in. You have to get the sock out of the, you know, living in floor and we have to dust. I mean, believe me. It’s never been immaculate here. We have a St. Bernard. So there are tumbleweeds of St. Bernard fluff, constantly, blowing around on the floor. But even so if you can be ready for guests to come within a few hours or just in a reasonable way, then it doesn’t become that.

[00:26:52] You’ve got to spend a whole day just being stressed, getting ready for guests to come. That makes it much more doable. And in your kids see that it’s ministry, you know, you can have people in your home And , it’s a joy.

[00:27:07] Erin: I’m seeing the balance too between yes, of course. We want to clean and take care of it is something that we can do as a ministry to invite people into. But at the same time, sometimes it’s about allowing people to come into your mess. And I’m not

[00:27:22] Michele: Oh, sure.

[00:27:23] Erin: Don’t do anything, but at the same time, if we allow our lack of time to clean , to cause us to not have time for connection, I think so many people myself included. I think community would fall away. I feel like me personally, I would be so isolated if I had to wait till my house was all put together to let someone.

[00:27:46] Michele: Right. I would still never have had company. If I waited till my house was perfect, because it would never have happened. It doesn’t happen because five minutes before the company comes the dog throws up on the floor or some unforeseen things happen and you just can’t that can’t perfection can’t even be on the table.

[00:28:04] Erin: Yeah. Well, you luckily have the dog to blame. Usually I would have picked one of my kids that did something, but yeah. But that’s so true.

[00:28:14] What are some verses that encourage you in this way of faithfulness , in just living life?

[00:28:22] Michele: Well, I like the verse that you have chosen as your theme verse for your podcast, because we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he has prepared beforehand for us to do. And so it just highlights that partnership that we work with God. The work has been prepared beforehand.

[00:28:45] And then we do it. And it’s like with the manna that God water the earth with, but the people had to go and gather it before they could have it. It didn’t just land in their kitchen. And so we partner with God in that. There’s a psalm that I love

[00:29:01] I think it’s Psalm 90 the Psalmist is asking God to establish the work of his hands. And he says it twice, establish the work of our hands, a Lord. Yes. Establish the work of our hands. We work in partnership with him. we trust him for the strength to do it for the inspiration to be able to know what the right thing is to do at the right time.

[00:29:22] So often that’s been a question that I have had. It is this it’s time for me to start a ladies Sunday school class, or, you know, is this the time for me to try to volunteer at some kind of English as a second language? I have all these things that I’d like to do, but I, you know, is this the time?

[00:29:42] And I want to learn to establish the work of my hands. I want it to be pleasing to him and I want to do what he has planned for me to do, but I think he works within our creative bent direct us as we do those things. We work with what we’ve got from materials. I have been surprised looking back over my life and seeing how God has always seemed to use writing whether I intended Him to or not every job that I ever had eventually turned into a writing gig in some way or another.  Looking back, I see that I didn’t see it at the time. And sometimes I think we have to look back and see what God has done in the past so that we can appreciate his leading and that helps us trust and going forward.

[00:30:23] Erin: I love those verses. That idea of establishing the work of our hands, there is always that question. What is the work of my hands? What’s the thing I should be doing. In this time that you’ve given me.

[00:30:37] And I think I’m trying not to see the time is the idol which I have at moments and stages. But to say, okay, I have a gift right now, this gift of time, what do I do with this gift of time that you’ve put in front of me? And I think that is one of the questions, how do we know what God has as the prepared work in front of us?

[00:30:59] What are your thoughts on that? Do you have any things that help you decipher in those moments of choice?

[00:31:05] Michele: Something that occurred to me back when my kids were little, I read it in one of Annie Dillard’s books. I wish I could remember which one. But she’s said the way we live our days will of course the, the way that we live our lives. And that stopped me in my tracks back then, and I keep coming back to it.

[00:31:25] And so I named my blog living our days, because I, I think some of the reason why I write about the things that I write is because I keep trying to write my way into an answer to that question. How can I live today in the way that I will want to have said when all is said and done that I live my life?

[00:31:43] It’s in those little minutes and those little choices that we make , do I want to be known as a person that, loved people that invested in people? Well, if I do, then I better answer that phone call rather than letting it go to the voicemail and getting it later or never getting it at all. What kind of mother do I want my kids to remember?

[00:32:04] It will be determined in this minute to some degree. I mean, we all have bad minutes, so hopefully those aren’t the most numerous, but what is the tone that I’m setting? I think we have this grand and glorious idea that we may are all on the altar, like the old hymn says once. But we pour our life out in drops for the Lord and it’s a daily offering. And so the way that I choose to live in this minute, contributes to the overall picture. So I continually ask myself what do, what story do I want to be able to tell about and fill in the blank about my mothering, about my relationship with my husband.

[00:32:46] Are we are creating an environment in a home that is peaceful and where people are in agreement with one another, or are we constantly undermining one another’s words.

[00:32:58] Feeling like maybe the other, person’s not carrying their load. I mean, I’ll fill in the blank, whatever the retention thing is, and you’re home kids feel that. And so the way we talk to our husbands, the way we address our kids. We’re building a big thing that we don’t even see sometimes because it’s built up tiny little offerings, tiny little words and attitudes , and even the, the eye roll of the sigh, you know, that comes, yes.

[00:33:26] Okay. Yes, fine. I’ll I’ll help you tie your shoe. That side communicates much more than the, yes. I’ll tie your shoe right now. I guess that’s my answer, the way we live our days will of course be the way we live our lives.

[00:33:39] Erin: okay. I’m contemplating a similar thing. I think with different words in my own life right now, and thinking about how I want to live a life that’s pointed towards the Lord and choosing to point my heart towards the Lord. there are constant moments where I have to turn back to that because I’m always tempted to turn from that directional focus and so thinking about those tiny droplets, choices poured out. I think I’m thinking about that is tiny choices to turn back, to focus on what would the Lord have me do in this moment that would, what would Erin’s selfishness do in this moment?

[00:34:16] when you say communicating the sighs and the eye rolls that’s the selfishness in me that communicates in that way. I think there’s multiple choice points, there’s that choice where I choose beforehand, not to act with a sigh or that feeling of annoyance at my child, but then there’s also that choice point of saying like, look, I did, I chose to act out of frustration. And so I again have that choice to turn back to the Lord. And I think in that moment, I also have the choice to turn back to my child.

[00:34:45] Michele: Hmm.

[00:34:46] Erin: I think that those go together when I , turned back to the Lord, it includes turning back to my child and acknowledging that there was a bad choice. That’s what I was hearing when you were talking a very similar

[00:34:59] Michele: Hm.

[00:35:00] Erin: But I love how you put it as living out our days because we’re living out our days wanting to seek the Lord, wanting to honor him and choose him.

[00:35:10] But there’s also a sacrifice, this giving up this pouring out that happens when we turn away from our own selfish desires and turn back to the Lord. We’re giving something up. When we turn back to him and away from our own selfish desires.

[00:35:25] The other thing that comes up for me as you were talking is, this question of how does the holy spirit play into this.

[00:35:31] I’m thinking about how does he lead us. And actually it makes me think of an experience that I had recently.

[00:35:38] where I was supposed to be doing a talk and something happened the day that I had set aside that this day would be my day that I would prepare and I was going to be so ready because I am good at this, you know, that kind of attitude.

[00:35:53] And God had it be that even just registration for the talk and different things that were happening. I had to deal with registration instead of preparing my talk. Registration , should have been closed. I felt like, this moment isn’t fair because I wanted to do better because I wanted to be more prepared.

[00:36:13] And I really had to go back to this place of going, I’m doing it in my own strength, but God is calling me to do this in his strength. I see that very strongly as a moment in my life regarding this talk, but I think I need to see that in the daily little things that go like in my own strength, I want to be a good mom that doesn’t sigh or roll her eyes. But to do that in God’s strength. I need to do that in saying, I don’t have the strength to not be frustrated. But God does. And he’ll work that in me. I think that’s something that , I’m learning more specifically, I’m looking for it after that moment I was kind of mad.

[00:36:54] Like I wanted to do this good God, why it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’m not going to be able to do this good. And you know what, like it went good

[00:37:03] Michele: I’m sure it

[00:37:03] Erin: Yeah. And it wasn’t because of me, it was because of God’s working in me. And I was so thankful for that opportunity to not be as prepared as I wanted to be.

[00:37:14] Michele: Hmm. Yeah. We get to experience gratitude when we see him work.

[00:37:18] Erin: Yeah.

[00:37:20] Michele: and that’s a bonus.

[00:37:21] I think you could sum up what we talked about with the idea that it turns out that it’s not mainly what you’re doing that makes the life, it’s why you’re doing it. And it doesn’t matter. So much that you might be doing something that isn’t exciting, or even what you feel like your gifts lends you to do.

[00:37:39] But if you’re doing it for the Lord. If you’re making that smallest task an offering and yourself and offering in the process, then you grow through it. Again, we’re back to the whole idea of it’s the way we live our days will be the way we live our lives. We show up, faithfully and then trust God with the details.

[00:38:02] Erin: That’s beautiful. Michele, this was so great to talk to you. I feel like there’s things that I see in your writing and now in talking to you that I see places where I feel like I am and growth, that I see that you’ve gone through, that I want to go through. What you’ve shared it is an encouragement to me, and I’m sure it will be to our listeners. So thank you so

[00:38:24] Michele: Well, it’s some of my favorite things to talk about, so that was fun. It was good. Thanks for asking questions.

[00:38:30] Erin: As we do close, I was wondering if you would be willing to close this in prayer.

[00:38:34] Michele: Oh, I’d love to

[00:38:35] Great.

[00:38:36] Erin: Lord, we

[00:38:36] Michele: thank you that you partner with us in the dailiness of our lives, that we are privileged to do the small, hidden tasks that you’ve put people in our lives who need us. And I pray that we would show up faithfully for them, that we would do it with joy. You would help us in our ministry of tending and keeping to know that we image you as our tender and that you tend to us so tenderly, and we’re thankful for the ways that you show up daily in our lives.

[00:39:07] Our very next breath, our very next heartbeat is in your hands. And so we thank you that you are our God who has kept us clothed and fed and in the right location at the right time, so that we could be effective for you. And we pray that you would help us to do that, to do our small ministry of tending with joy.

[00:39:28] In Jesus name, we pray.

[00:39:30] Erin: amen. Michelle, I was also wondering, I know you mentioned your blog, but could you go ahead and share for the listeners where we could find you and connect with you? Because I’m sure people are going to to find you.

[00:39:40] Michele: My main writing ministry right now happens at my blog, which is called living our days. And you can sign that @michelemorin.net , Michele with one L , M O R I N . net. That’s where everything happens. If I write someplace else, I usually will let people know there. And I put out a monthly newsletter so people can sign up for that there.

[00:40:05] And of course I’m on Instagram and all the places. And I’m embarrassingly easy to find there too. So if anybody wants to connect with me there, that’s pretty easy to do.

[00:40:15] Erin: Great. Yeah. Thanks for being easy to connect with. I appreciate that personally.

[00:40:21] Michele: Yeah,

[00:40:22] well, I was so glad

[00:40:23] Erin: friends. I know that I was blessed by that conversation. So much of Michelle’s wisdom. I feel spoke directly to my heart and I hope that that is the same for you. I highly encourage you to reach out and connect with Michelle.

[00:40:41] I would also love to connect with you myself. You can find me at erinmichele.net. There’s also one L in my Michele. There you’ll find my blog show .Notes and transcripts to the show

[00:40:56] as well as my journaling resource to help you sit down, look at scripture as you contemplate. What is my next step?

[00:41:07] As always I hope to see you back here next time,

[00:41:10] but until then, I wanted to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians two 10 for we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Friends. I’m praying for you as you keep on steppin