The Gift of Motherhood

Every passing year of motherhood, I am more and more in awe of my mom.  She made it look effortless.  She made the daily-cooking, hourly-cleaning, laundry-folding, thermometer-wielding, playdate-driving, soccer-game-watching, homework-assisting, complaint-listening, tear-drying art of mothering look second-nature.  And it made me want to be a mom.  And now, here I am, almost seven years into mothering, and I know that many times it’s anything but effortless or second-nature.  It’s hard helping little people who don’t want to be helped.  It’s thankless cooking and cleaning for little people who just keeping spitting out the food and making more messes.  It’s exhausting caring for sick little people who don’t understand why they don’t feel well.  It’s heart-rending watching little people figure out that things in life don’t always go smoothly.  But my mom knew that motherhood was a gift from God.  And because of her, I know it, too.  And so I can view the hard times as a gift, as a way to give God glory.  Because it’s not through my strength that I can do hard things.  “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil 4:13).  And because of Christ, motherhood is full of joy.  It’s an act of service to the Lord, one for which He will continue to equip me.  It’s joyous because it’s a way we can better understand what Christ did for us – thankless, complaining, sick, undeserving little people though we are – on the Cross.  Motherhood is a joy every time I look at these four amazing people and realize that God loves me even more than I love them, and that He died to save us, working all things out for His Glory and our good. 

My mom gave me a wonderful book called “Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full” by Gloria Furman.  Furman writes, “The gifts that God gives us serve this holy purpose – to direct our praise to the giver of those gifts.  If you enjoy the gift of your children and the gift of your motherhood, but your joy terminates in those gifts, then you’ve missed the point of the gifts” (p.31).  The point of motherhood, the point of life, is to glorify God for creating us, sustaining us, and saving us. 

So Mom, thanks not only for displaying the gracious gift of motherhood, but for teaching me that “every good and perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17).   I love you.