Motherhood

The Lord uses a multitude of things to sanctify us. It is often said that if we pray for patience, the Lord will put us in an opportunity where we must practice being patient. Sanctification is the continual process in which we become more holy. The decisions we make each day can either glorify God and sanctify us with their righteousness, or unfortunately become an example of humanity’s fallen nature. I believe that our children are the biggest tool for sanctification in our lives. They show us what selflessness looks like in the newborn stages, test our patience and grace in the toddler stages and look to us as their main Christ-like example as they grow. Often, when I am losing grace for my children, I remind myself of God’s grace for me as my Heavenly Father. His grace and forgiveness is unending for those who love Him. How much disparity there is between His role as Father, and my role as a mother! How short I fall. My response to my children’s disobedience must attempt to emulate the grace and love God gives me when I disobey Him. In times of trial, I dwell on the character of God, for encouragement as to how I should act and assurance that God’s love for me is so infinitely greater than my love for my own children (as great as that is). 

2 Chronicles 30:9 → … for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.

Psalm 52:1→ … the steadfast love of God endures all the day.

Psalm 145:8 → The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

James 5:11 → … you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Let's back up a bit. There is something worth mentioning that occurs long before our children have the capability to test us. Before the days of balancing a teething baby on one hip, wrestling crayons out of the mouth of my toddler and failing to convince my oldest about the proper way to write the letter “D”, motherhood began as no one ever told me it would. In despair. 

I didn’t live a selfish life before I became a mother. I volunteered at church and at local organizations, I visited my family often and was always willing to help others. I would’ve said I was relatively selfless, but I wasn’t tested or forced to do things that I didn’t want to do. 

Normal things like sleeping, eating and going out became solely dependent on my newborn daughter. Her schedule trumped all and I was overwhelmed with the commitment of a newborn. Mentally I spiraled, feeling like I had lost control of my life as I knew it and I struggled to find the Joy so often promoted in motherhood. I was utterly and desperately overwhelmed. No days off. No clocking out. No lunch breaks. You are always on the clock, whether you want to be or not. And that’s when I started to understand true selflessness. It took a few months to grow into the mindset of serving God with my parenting. It is exhausting and not always distinctly rewarding. But the Joy comes in fulfilling the role that God has designed for us and doing it in a way that honours Him. 

John 3:30 →  He must increase, but I must decrease.

Even though I felt isolated in those early days, I learned to rely on God like never before. He became the motivation to be a good mother. It is our calling as mothers to maintain Christ-like servitude to our children and it glorifies God when we raise our children in servitude to Him. If Jesus were to physically raise my children He would have the perfect balance of discipline and grace. He would be gentle and kind. His patience would abound while making it clear to the children of what was expected of them. This is how I try to maintain my standard as a mother, it’s an impossibly high one but it keeps me accountable. What is a more realistic standard than me imitating Jesus, is the fact that He is always with us: omnipresent. I must remember that the Lord God of heaven and earth who created me and everything else, who redeemed me of my sins and saved me from condemnation, He is present in my home. Now that has a drastic effect on my parenting. 

Proverbs 15:3 → The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. 

Psalm 139:7 → Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

Children are both the greatest blessing and the biggest challenge in life. I have known no greater joy and no greater frustration in the same day. Sometimes the same hour. As believers, our children force us to behave more like Christ; it is important that our behaviour as mothers is motivated by our desire to glorify God with our parenting. As we raise our children in righteousness, our prayer is that the Lord would work in their hearts to redeem them from their sin, just as He has already done for us. 

Proverbs 22:6 → Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

3 John 4 → I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

Motherhood, in one breath, is our obedience to raise our children in a godly way, while simultaneously honouring God and being sanctified for His purpose. Paul was addressing the body of believers in Colossae when he wrote the following passage; it is also applicable to us as mothers as we serve Christ in everything we do. 

Colossians 3:12-17, 23-24 → Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.