A #LaborDay prayer for moms and dads whose daily (unpaid!) work and calling includes the glorious duty of diapers:
"Heavenly Father, in such menial moments as this—the changing of a diaper—I would remember this truth: My unseen labors are not lost, for it is these repeated acts of small sacrifice that are slowly being sewn into a quilt of lovingkindness that swaddles this child.
"I am not just changing a diaper. By love & service I'm tending a budding heart that, rooted early in such grace-filled devotion, might one day be more readily-inclined to bow to your compassionate conviction—knowing itself then as both receptacle & reservoir of heavenly grace.
"So this little act of diapering—though in form sometimes felt as base drudgery—might be better described as one of ten thousand acts by which I am actively creating a culture of compassionate service and selfless love to shape the life of this family and this beloved child.
"So take this unremarkable act of necessary service, O Christ, and in your economy let it be multiplied into that greater outworking of worship and of faith, a true investment the incremental advance of your kingdom across generations.
"Open my eyes that I might see this act for what it is from the fixed vantage of eternity, O Lord—how the changing of a diaper might sit upstream of the changing of a heart; how the changing of a heart might sit upstream of the changing of the world. Amen."
(Source: Douglas Kaine McKelvey, "A Liturgy for Changing Diapers I," Every Moment Holy)
