A friend sends a message about walls closing in, sick kids, feeling underappreciated, and how in the world she’s going to make it through this never-ending season. I tell her I understand. It’s been a long season in this house, too. In times like these, following God wholeheartedly in the unseen work of life feels grueling.
For me, the calling throughout the past seven months has been to lie on the couch and survive the lingering illness that accompanies my pregnancies. I’ve been called to be still, hydrate, and try to somehow keep pressing on.
Sometimes, the calling of a season feels so much like a quiet kind of death that it’s hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Following God Wholeheartedly in Obscurity
It’s not easy to do the quiet, humble, underappreciated work in a cycle that feels like it might never end.
It isn’t easy to write words for only a handful of readers, teach ungrateful students, care for disgruntled clients, or serve cantankerous people for decades.
Following God wholeheartedly isn’t t easy when your boss, husband, or best friend doesn’t say thanks or even realize the work you’re doing when no one is watching.
When making a difference becomes a mere effort to make it through long days, it feels trite to spout one-liners about how our unseen moments are our most important moments.
Following God Wholeheartedly When Your Calling Feels Thankless
I know this only because I’ve experienced it. I’ve been laid low and humbled, and I’ve wrestled with why and listed the lessons learned in the valley, and I’m still here, still in the valley.
I’m wrestling with these thoughts when a Truth strikes me on a snowy April morning: These hard, hidden, humble acts of service matter most because our hearts matter most.
Our hearts matter more than what the world sees on the outside.
Our hearts matter more than the awards on our walls, the plaques on the mantle, or even the balance in the bank account.
The Lord is after hearts that are fully committed to him. Until we’re ready to do the hard, humble work, the kind that leaves us feeling underappreciated, without ever receiving the applause of others, we’re not ready for the applause.
The applause will destroy us if we don’t first learn to live for an audience of One in the dark.
The Truth for When Your Calling Is Unseen
And so, mother with the teething baby, caretaker who no one ever thanks, friend who is overlooked for the thousandth time, difference-maker who is struggling just to get out of bed and do it all again, let the heart-work happen.
Let today be the day you do the hard and humbling work with a joyful heart. These moments of feeling underappreciated are quiet deaths, and these quiet deaths are shaping you into an image more beautiful than you can imagine.
The heart-work matters most, and these quiet seasons are the seasons that make the biggest difference, if not in the lives of others, then in our own hearts.
When we can do the hard work in unseen places and do it with gratitude, we are transformed. A transformed heart holds the influence to transform the world.
As for me, as the walls inch closer in this beige living room, I open a curtain, take another sip of water, and decide to count it all joy. Hope is floating through the window on the rays of this April sunbeam, and this journey will be worth the effort.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Stacey Pardoe
Featured Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
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