My dear wife Amy, Mother-In-Law to Kathy, Grammy to our coming granddaughter, gave this wonderful shower talk last Thursday.  I just had to share it!

Fruitfulness in Community

Kathy’s Baby Shower Talk September 10, 2009

I’m so excited! Isn’t this exciting?!

We’ve had many happy days lately, celebrating many babies and brides, but isn’t that a wonderful thing?!

Once again we’re gathering to celebrate a new life in our community. A new little piece of Christ’s victory on earth. I think the abundance of baby showers we’ve had this summer is a wonderful sign of God’s blessing and goodness towards our community. We are actually seeing God fulfill His promises to us in our lifetimes – we asked Him to bless our efforts to promote faithful families for Christ’s earthly kingdom purposes and He is causing our cup to overflow! What a glorious thing it is that baby shower gifts are quickly becoming their own budget category for RCC members!

One of the blessings of all these babies in our community is the joy we now have of having several generations in our church. Since this shower is not only Kathy’s RCC shower, but her Hayes and Shubin families shower, I decided to do the shower talk myself and bring a somewhat personal viewpoint to the birth of the newest little Hayes. Hopefully you will all find something edifying in our little chat tonight, but I have to confess from the beginning that it is a talk highly colored by the Hayes family story.

As anyone who knows me very well will tell you, Kathy most especially:

I am inordinately excited over the coming of this baby.

In my way of thinking, a Hayes baby has been a long time coming! In fact, with a daughter-in-law less generous than Kathy, I’d say I’ve been walking a fine line of making this little baby girl “all about me!”

But, since Kathy seems to welcome all the fuss with open arms, I’ve decided that I’m free to go completely overboard and be as ridiculous as I please over being a “Grammy.” Many an eyebrows may rise over my age and my friends may laugh at my needing to take September off to “get ready for the baby,” but I don’t have to care! God’s faithfulness to give all women an avenue of fruitfulness is demonstrated in this little bit of baby excitement in the Hayes family.

This is what I’d like to talk to you about tonight. How each of us fulfill our calling by God to be fruitful from Genesis 1:28, but not always in the natural way we think of when we read, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

Let me quickly read that familiar passage for you:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;

We’re pretty clear on our part in the dominion mandate in our community. Our family average is at least triple the national rate of 1.2 children per household, we work hard to have single-income households, find ways to educate our children without the state, create homes that are sanctuaries for those children and show them marriages filled with love and respect bound by the grace and mercy of Christ.

Godly fruitfulness is something we embrace and excel at in increasing contrast to the barren world around us.

However, some of us have been asked to face the question of, “how can I be fruitful, filling the earth and subduing it?” This happens for many reasons.

Perhaps you are like I was and discovered your lovely plan to “start with 7 and see from there” was halted by the sovereign hand of God saying “no”. How are you supposed to be fruitful if you can’t bear physical fruit?

Perhaps prince charming has tarried in riding in on his white charger. You can’t very well be fruitful and multiply all by yourself!

Perhaps your beloved child is in a season of rebellion or has fallen away from the faith and it seems to you that while you did multiply, you don’t feel it was very fruitful. (Bobbi’s fear)

Maybe you’re on the other end of the spectrum and with 4 children under the age of 5, you have begun to feel overwhelmed by single-handedly trying to fill the earth!

There are many circumstances that can bring us to the question of how are we to be fruitful for Christ in the particular situation in which He has sovereignly placed us. Thankfully, His word has much to say to us about being fruitful in whatever way He forms our journey.

I’d like to pass along 3 observations I’ve made in thinking through godly fruitfulness in my own life.

First

Fruitfulness is found in our community. Sometimes if we are feeling frustrated about not being able to be fruitful in the way we expected – we need to consider other avenues. You may not be having all the children you expected to, or not yet, but perhaps you can be useful to those who are. Our calling is to be fruitful AND multiply – meaning the calling to fruitfulness is additional to the calling to multiply. When physical fruitfulness is denied or delayed, it is time to put more energy towards being fruitful in other ways. Be a blessing to those who are physically fruitful. Contribute to the fruitfulness of the Christian community around you. Can you serve a young mother who is struggling with the weariness of running after toddlers? Can you be a friend, example, “auntie” or “nanna” to children in your circles who maybe don’t have an extended Christian family? You may not be filling the earth personally, but you can be fruitful through helping those in your Christian community raise up a generation that knows God and exhibits the fruits of the spirit to the world around. Raising a godly seed is not a job for sissies and I know extremely few, if any, Christian moms who would turn away a helping hand!

Romans 12:4-6 tells us that,

For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them…

Each part of the body of Christ has a place in helping our families succeed at bringing forth a fruitful generation on the earth. We are one with one another and when a generation rises up that knows God, we all have been fruitful together as a body.

Secondly

Are you using your community? Whatever end of the struggle you may be on, there are many women of all walks here who want to help you succeed. Take advantage of the opportunities to seek one another out that are already available such as our Ladies’ Fellowship breakfasts. Reach out bodly and ask someone about their experiences or for their advice. God gave us a rich community life, but it’s of no blessing to us if we retreat from it in times of stress and struggle rather than reaching out and using our community life.

Sharing your burden of feeling unfruitful may help you to bear it and you may find fresh ideas for pursing kingdom fruitfulness. Asking someone to help you when you are overwhelmed with all the fruit running around underfoot in your home may allow that helper find an outlet for their own gifts. You may think everyone else has their hands full too, but you don’t know until you ask. I’ve spoken to many women who would like to be helpful to the next generation of young mothers, but aren’t sure how to get started or what exactly is needed.

A specific example I can think of is homeschooling. I can only imagine how hard it is to succeed at teaching 3 grades and nursing a new baby! God is increasingly blessing us with veteran homeschoolers and I know from personal conversations that some of them would love to help you succeed in educating your children! Find a mother who loved homeschooling and just talk – you may just find that those who loved homeschooling like to share their experiences and wisdom with you. J Someone may even like to help – maybe they miss teaching!

Avail yourself of the community God has given you that your home may be fruitful. Reject the uniquely American idol of individualism and share your load. It may be that in sharing your load you will actually be blessing the person who is called on to help you. Amanda may think I’m helping her by holding Esther while she eats, but really she is blessing me by sharing that baby! Using your community is a blessing to that body and you become fruitful together in one another’s lives. Don’t let your fruit rot on the vine because pride keeps you from sharing the labor or the harvest.

Lastly-

Reach out to those in community with you. Each of us has particular fruits of the spirit that we excel at and those we fail at. Use your strengths to hold up the weaknesses of others. When you see a sister floundering in a particular season of life – don’t wait for them to become desperate enough to send out an SOS – just offer. Just as using your community blesses it, reaching out towards others produces fruit in their lives and yours.

We all desire to come before the Lord on our judgment day and hear, “well done thou good and faithful servant.” We desire to be fruitful with the gifts He has given us. Pursue fruitfulness, not only by having those beautiful babies and raising them for Christ, but by seeking the fruitfulness of your Christian community, using it and reaching out for help from it.

The beautiful baby and mommy we here to celebrate tonight is what I would like to end on. I told you this was going to be a particularly Hayes talk and now’s my moment to beg your indulgence because I want to finish not with thoughts on fruitfulness, but by taking a moment to personally commend our guest of honor to you tonight.

At the end of the book of Ruth we read of the birth of her first born son,

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a close relative; and may his name be famous in Israel!  And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom, and became a nurse to him.  Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “There is a son born to Naomi.” And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

In my imagination, I always thought a natural motherly possessiveness over her baby would’ve made it hard for Ruth to allow her firstborn to be so completely claimed by Naomi. However, that’s probably me reading this passage through the lens of my own selfish tendencies. Ruth, who loved Naomi enough to speak those beautiful words we know so well from Chapter 1, continues to pour out her love here at the end of the book in this sharing of her fruitfulness with her mother-in-law.

Kathy is wonderful living example of Ruth in our home. However odd our family may seem to the world around us – Kathy is that kind of godly, loving woman whose joy in family causes her to pour herself out for them and unselfishly, joyfully share her best treasure with even me. Instead of being embarrassed or annoyed, Kathy is an example of being fruitful in community as she reaches out to me – taking me to her ultrasound, inviting me to have an opinion on her nursery colors.

She happily accepts me as “mother-in-law-friend” and “grammy” without being weirded out by my age and welcomes my ridiculous over-eargerness about this baby without ever seeming to become intruded upon. My daughter-in-law who loves me is better than the 7 babies I had all planned out for my “normal” family because in love she shares her fruitfulness with all of us at home.

So, I wanted to take a chance to praise Kathy before all of you tonight for this loving fruitfulness she pursues in the lives of her family.

I encourage you, Kathy, to continue in this pouring out, not for my sake, because I know this really isn’t about me however much we joke about it. It’s because pouring ourselves out is what we do as mothers and with that virtue alone you will be a wonderful mommy to our girl and your life will be filled with both the fruitfulness this baby represents, but also the fruitfulness of good works that blesses the community of our family and the world around you.

Let’s pray together

Heavenly Father, Thank you for calling us to fruitfulness and for giving each of us the means and way you would have us fulfill that calling. Help us to humbly submit ourselves to your ways and your means. Give us strength to the task you have appointed. Accept our works through the work of your Son.

Thank you for the community of Christian sisters we have represented here tonight. Thank you for surrounding us with love and fellowship in a world that is increasingly hostile and isolated by sin. Help us to see one another’s needs and to fill them. Cause us to be true pictures of your love toward us in they way we lay ourselves down for one another.

Bless this new member of your body Lord. Give her and her mother safety, health and strength as she enters the world. Cause her to grow each day of her life in stature before both you her God and men her community. Give her sweetness of spirit and thankfulness of heart and make her a joy to her Savior, her family and her church body. Be her God and watch over her, guiding her feet on paths of righteousness we pray for we know that she is given to us in safekeeping only and that you are her Father who loves her.

Bless Kathy as she enters into motherhood. Give her strength for the tasks that are too great and joy for the times that are too sorrowful. Send her fellow laborers in Christ to lighten her load and to aid her success in raising her daughter for you. Send the peace of your Holy Spirit to her as she looks forward to the perils of childbirth. Make her path smooth and her way easy. We ask you especially Lord to cause this baby girl to turn so that Kathy doesn’t have to go through the trial of a C-section.

Bless each of us here that has role in the life of this new mother and child. Let us be a blessing to them both. Cause our celebration tonight to redown to your glory and to the edification and encouragement of one another we pray. Thank Lord for being our God and hearing our prayers as we call out to you to look down on us in love.

We pray these things in the name of Christ Jesus – Amen.