Our need for this last month together is: Significance. Every human being, male or female, needs to feel that his or her life signifies something. Many of us have been to the shore and seen the limitless ocean . . . and we feel so small. Maybe you have lain on your back in the grass and looked up at the heavens and the countless stars. How can we be significant in such a vast universe?

The Weakness of Women is that we try to find our significance in relationships—we will be the best wife and our husband will always adore us. We will be the best mother and our children will achieve great things. The only trouble is sometimes husbands leave, or die, or simply work too much to give us any feeling of significance. And after children finish puking on us, they grow up to be teenagers and know everything, so you are stupid and interfering. Then they become adults who will raise their own children much better than you did, and you become aware of the many mistakes humans make and you ask their forgiveness.

Have you heard the axiom: “If you think you are so important, stick your fist in a bucket of water, then pull it out and see how quickly it is replaced.” The Weakness of Men is finding significance in their jobs, and many of us found significance in a job. We did such a terrific job that we thought everyone would find us irreplaceable. Then after we come back from raising kids, we find the position not only adequately filled, but perhaps someone who brought new ideas, new talents and did it even better. WOW, does that shatter our ego! Or we get laid off and have no job—if your feeling of significance is in your job, you feel your life has no meaning.

Some find significance in how they look—the best hairdo, the most fashionable clothing, the prom queen. But looks fail us. We are sick or exhausted from looking after sick kids—we look in the mirror and want to put a towel over our head. We have babies and our body is just not the same shape it once was.

So if our relationships cannot make us feel significant, if our jobs and our beauty cannot achieve it, where can we go? In this vast universe, Who knows our End and our Beginning? Does anyone care?

You have been in MOPS long enough to know where I am going. There is One who has seen you at your worst, knows your every failure and weakness, and formed and fashioned you just the way you are for His purpose. Until we plug into our Creator, we won’t know who we were meant to be. Our job, whether bricklayer or teacher, truck driver or doctor, scientist or mother, becomes significant when God calls us to be His Ambassador, His light in the darkness, His love in an uncaring world. Until we know the Shepherd’s arms gently cradling us, we cannot truly provide real comfort to fevered babies or lost husbands who feel they are failing their families—they feel that way lots of the time, wives, did you know that? (Go see the movie RV, it is not only hysterically funny, it also has a message. Maybe we could make it a Moms Night Out.)

Have you ever meditated on what it means that God knows the number of  hairs on your head? When you come to the appreciation that God knows you intimately, and loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for you, then you realize how significant you are. You see, God is not some vague force out there; He is a Person Who wants to have a relationship with you. If you allow Him to be in charge of your life, He will love you and give you the capacity to love others, and He will empower you to do the best job as mothers and in the marketplace.

Your life has significance because before the worlds were formed, He had you in his mind. Before we were fashioned in our mother’s wombs, He knew us. When we place our hand in His, then we can be significant in the lives of others and significant at work and in the things we do. Think about this: you are a part of a cosmic plan, an instrument in the Hands of the God of the universe. How could we look anywhere else for Significance?