"Changing the world, one diaper at a time"

Austin's Andrea Palpant Dilley in CT:

In my early 20s...I served the urban homeless, worked with welfare families, and volunteered with orphans in the slums of Nairobi. I beat my fists against my chest in a spiritual war cry for global justice and swore never to set foot in the insular space of suburbia. Nominal, consumer Christians lived in suburbia, I thought. Real Christians were out on the frontlines fighting for great causes. Then I got married, had kids, and settled down in a cookie-cutter neighborhood of Austin, Texas, where I found myself forced to rethink what it meant to follow Christ and serve humanity in the context of the suburbs.

I'm still trying to figure it out. My days are filled with activities that would make David Platt yawn with boredom: I change diapers. I scrub pee out of carpets. I wipe vomit off the kitchen floor. Most days, I'm lucky to get out of the house at all, and if I do, I'm usually taking my 10-month-old and 4-year-old to visit the elderly woman down the street. We take dog treats to her yippy dog, sit at her kitchen table eating pretzels, and ask about her arthritis. What greater good do I serve? My widowed neighbor feels less lonely. My kids learn about hospitality and Christian love. That's about it.

From the outside, the life of mothers may look unremarkable, and yet I've come to believe—had to learn to believe, actually—that our mundane actions have profound purpose if we take a long view of both our own lives and the life of the world. We're raising our kids and rearing up the next generation of leaders. That has to count for something, doesn't it? Behind every history-making visionary is (or was) a mother wearing an apron, mopping up puke, and reading Curious George ten times in succession at the behest of a half-dressed preschooler.

 

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