I Will Most Gladly
At some point when our girls were small, I inked the phrase “Spend and be spent” on an index card and propped it where I couldn’t miss it: in the window sill above where I prep dinner. That phrase comes from 2 Corinthians, where Paul writes,
I seek not what is yours but you. . . . I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. (2 Corinthians 12:14-15)
I don’t remember why that passage first resonated with me or when I wrote it on that card. I only remember the days afterward, when I’d glance up from mixing baby food or chopping onions, and see it seated there at eye level—a reminder. I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.
That is, I will spend all I have for you, and I will myself be poured out for the sake of your souls! I will hold nothing back; I will not fearfully, self-protectively, hide away bits of myself, but I will joyfully give all I have, for your sake, in love.
In my years as a mother, I’ve heard many voices telling me to prioritize self-care, to pursue my passions, to carve out time for myself. And listen: there’s a kernel of truth embedded in those ideas.1 I know there are many women who need to be reminded to cease fearfully wearing themselves out and take a moment to rest.
But I am not one of them.
My struggle lies in the opposite direction: I have many passions, and I could gladly spend and be spent pursuing them. I wake hours before my kids and kept them to strict nap schedules for years and sent them to bed early, in part so I’d have time to catch my breath and spend time writing, drawing, playing my guitar, learning the ukulele, folding origami or knitting or painting or crocheting or whatever I was really into at the time.
Rather than being in danger of losing myself as I served my family, I usually faced the opposite danger of holding myself back, of measuring out my service. Too often I’ve missed the blessing that comes from giving all I have, then witnessing the Lord’s provision as he meets me at the bottom of the empty barrel and gives me more to spend. So I set these words where I would see them daily:
In those early years, it was the “spend and be spent” that stuck with me, because that was my work from morning to . . . not night, exactly, because the work didn’t end at night but pressed on through to the next morning. When I look at my daughters now, driving themselves places and running off to friends’ houses to play, I find it hard to remember those early years, when nary a jacket could be buttoned or a shoe tied without my help.
Back then, “spend and be spent” served as a reminder that this was the work. Caring for my small daughters wasn’t something to systematize into a more convenient shape or to outsource to others—it was something I was called to do fully, with all I had, holding nothing back.
And while I’m still called to that, I find now that the phrase “I will most gladly” fits my season best. These days it’s all too easy for me to administrate my daughters from a distance—to make sure they have what they need, then send them out the door before turning toward my own pursuits again. Nobody is actively pushing me to the end of my strength day after day right now, so it’s easy to imagine that I am giving more than I actually am.
But these days the work is more voluntary: that daughter doesn’t need my help with math (goodness no! We established years ago that I am not the math tutor they’re looking for), but she might like my company while she wrestles through her assignment. And this daughter doesn’t need me to set her curlers in place—that’s what mirrors are for, right? But when I set my book down and offer to help, she lets herself lean back into my hands as I work in a way that makes me wonder if maybe she hasn’t outgrown this as much as I’d thought . . .
These moments train me, too, for the “drop everything” moments of true need—for there are still plenty of those, and I’m sure more will arise as the years go on. The long phone calls now to talk through the hard news; the quick flights to tend to their families during an emergency—I don’t even know. I can’t imagine it yet.
But I know that this is the way our Lord loves us: gladly.2 And he has called us to love one another as he has loved us—holding nothing back but spending it all for us, spending even himself, his own life. Paul’s example stands for us, too. And each time I glance up from measuring out flour and see that simple reminder, I think Yes.
This is the work of love.
(You can purchase your own copy of Théa’s print in her Etsy shop.)
- Of course, these calls don’t quite go far enough, because while time alone or “self-care” can refresh us, they can’t refill us the way the Lord does. He is our one necessary thing—our refuge and rest! (And yes, I’m still learning this too.)
↩︎ - Familiar as I am with this verse now, I actually found myself pausing today over the verse before it: “I seek not what is yours but you.” What a picture of love! I seek not the happiness you can give me—I seek you. Just as the Lord loves us not for the things we can offer him, but for our own sake, so I long to seek not what he can give me—and he could truly give anything—but him. I long, too, to love my daughters not because of anything they can give me (though they certainly bless me plenty) but because of who they are. ↩︎
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Very convicting. Thanks for writing. I needed the reminder to love sacrificially, and to not worry about being loved back.