Whoa--a servant of all?

Up next in the month o' Thomas: he is a servant leader.

Now, if you are in the church, this is one of those "catch phrases" that you hear about men and their role in the home--you hear it so often that I think it loses its impact from repetition. Essentially, the idea is that in a marriage, the man should love his wife the way Christ loved the church. Okay, sounds easy enough until you realize that Christ died for the church and being a servant leader implies dying to self each and every day. Since becoming a mommy, I have figured out just how hard this is because being a mommy involves a lot of dying to self. Or, as I have twisted it more often than not, repressing my desires just long enough to "do the mommy thing" at the cost of my husband, home, family or friends. I had a hard day with the baby, I find myself thinking, that friend won't mind if I wait another week to call her back, or, my time with the Lord can wait until tomorrow because I'm pooped,  or, Thomas doesn't really need to talk to me about his job right now when all I want to do is read blogs on the ipad. Which isn't to say that all mommies don't need a break now and then; even Jesus took time to rest, but what is the motivation and where does the time go?
Anyways, I digress. Servant leadership. It's important. And I love watching Thomas in action. Not because he is always perfect at setting aside what he wants to do but he is consistently able to prioritize in love. Here is a quick example: last Friday morning Lillian woke up super early (5 something) and I was having a melt down because I was tired and sick and it is so frustrating when she wakes up early because it throws the whole day off (#first world problems, I realize). T always goes to Bible study on Friday mornings--it's his one time of the week for consistent "man time" and delicious hot food, and I know he loves going, but he selflessly set this aside to help me out with L. We ended up sitting on the couch together, watching MELMO and eating cereal while L forcefully climbed between us. A relaxing and refreshing time of Bible study, it wasn't, but I really appreciated that he didn't call me out for being a hormonal pansy, which would have been true, and just pitched in and helped out. I could describe countless other, seemingly inconsequential moments that have helped to put flesh on Christ's commands to love one another.

 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

Every time his family is in town, he spends a ton of time making lattes for everyone.