Accomplishing an Image

What, exactly, is it I want to accomplish?
I think the list of things changes, depending on where I am and what I'm doing.
As a mom of very young children, the stock answer was always “a clean house” but when I'm honest with myself, what I really wanted to accomplish was to do things in a way that would make it obvious I was a good wife and mom. I think that was because I really wasn't sure I was; in fact, I was pretty sure I wasn't.
Funny, isn't it, how easily we fall into worldly traps? What did it mean to be a good wife and mom? In the town where we lived then, it meant to be involved with your kid's activities. It meant to have a house with no clutter and a clean kitchen. It meant your yard looked pretty and your husband looked happy. It meant you smiled when you met someone at the grocery store.
As long as I took that as the standard for “being a good wife and mom” I was caught in a worldly trap – basing my evaluation of myself on other people's standards.
But God has other ideas, I think. He wants us to evaluate ourselves on His standards.
That's where that image of God, Jesus, comes in.
As far as I know, Jesus never kept house. I'm not ruling it out, but we don't have a record of it!
But we do have a record of how He loved and cared for people, and if that isn't the essence of being a “good wife and mom” I don't know what is. He lived out the picture – the image – of what God has in mind for us, of what God longs for us to do and be.
The funny thing is, when I thought about it, that's what I really wanted to accomplish.