Mothering Is Discipleship
My heart was weary from the mothering tasks of the day. I came around the corner, my arms full of folded laundry, and I heard my husband reading to the kids as they gathered around him.
I stood for a moment and listened. Grant was explaining to them about the Tower of Babel. He was asking them questions and telling them about how the people of that day wanted a life lived for their own glory. He was discipling our children.
At that moment, the weariness of the day seemed to wash away, and I realized I had gotten caught up in the doing and lost sight of my true calling.
It can be easy for me, at times, to do that. To get caught up in the tasks I need to complete. And when I do, I often find my heart weary, because I have reduced my role as a mother to just caring for the physical needs of my children.
I don’t downplay that role at all. I consider it a great privilege and incredible honor that I get to be home with them, fold their laundry, fix their meals, help them get dressed, and keep our home … I love that role!
But when I reduce motherhood to just that, I find myself worn down and not enjoying my days. Because that is not the fullness of what God has called me to as a mother.
And often, when the world looks in at motherhood, I think that is all they see. They see just the physical tasks that come with mothering. “Isn’t that tiring? All the unbuckling and buckling and the sweeping and the repetitious mundane? Couldn’t anyone do that for the kids?”
And I think it’s good to even ask myself that question—why me? Why is my role so important?
Because godly motherhood (and fatherhood, too) is so much more than caring for the physical needs of my children. I am not my children’s babysitter. I’m not the hired help. My role cannot be delegated. I am called to so much more than that.
I am called to disciple my children and to pass on my faith to them. To help my children understand the world and their place in it. To share the otherness and greatness of God with them. To listen to their questions in ways that others won’t and don’t have time for and answer the best that I can or try to find out the answers. To stop in our daily moments in the car and explain why bad things happen, what it looks like to trust God, and how faith in Christ changes everything.
That can’t be done in fifteen minutes just before bedtime or only on Sunday mornings. It’s a daily calling. It’s a lifelong calling. It’s a high calling. And it’s done in the everyday moments. And somehow the physical and the spiritual are intertwined (Deut. 6:7).
When Paul commends his disciple Timothy for his faith in 2 Timothy 1:5, he commends him for his “sincere faith, which first dwelt in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice". Two things strike me to the heart about this passage. First, it was that Timothy’s faith was sincere. It was genuine. Real. Not just words. Not pretending. A real love for God. In a world of multicolored filters and flashy entertainment, how desperate our world is for something real.
This reminds me of the faith that Jesus commends one of his first disciples, Nathanael, for when he says, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” (John 1:47). Nathanael’s heart was laid bare before the Lord. A simple and believing faith. Not hiding anything. Just believing.
And the second thing that hits me from this passage is, of course, the women who passed on this faith—his grandmother and mother. This was a faith lived out. A gritty faith. A true faith “which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice…”
These two women who raised Timothy weren’t commended for caring for the physical needs of Timothy, though assuredly that is of vital importance. But I think that is just assumed. No, the commendation came for something more, a genuine faith.
One day, when it’s all said and done, I cannot imagine hearing greater words spoken of my children, and in regards to my mothering, than what Paul said to Timothy about his faith. That my children had a “genuine faith.” A faith that first dwelt in me and now dwells in them. A faith passed on. A faith lived out.
My children will not find a perfect faith in me, that is for sure. But I pray they will find a real one. A laid-bare one. A genuine one. A faith that points not to how hard I am holding on, but to Who is holding me.
So today, I’m going to care for the physical needs of my home and children, but I’m going to remember that many tasks can be left undone if they get in the way of my greatest task.
I’m not here today to just keep the house tidy. I am called to disciple my children. It’s not a complicated task, but I can often let myself get in the way of it. And it takes time.
It’s not a task that follows a certain formula but is lived genuinely and dependently.
It won’t be seen in shiny floors or folded laundry, and it for sure can’t be captured in an Instagram post. It’s found on my knees and in humble dependence. It’s found in time with my children… laying on a blanket and looking up at the clouds and talking about the Creator, going for an undistracted walk and holding their hands, laying down with them at night, cleaning the kitchen together, or picking up sticks in the yard. The physical and spiritual intertwined.
So I pray that today, you won’t let any voice whisper in your ear that you are not important, that this day is not important, or that your role isn’t important. Because it so is. It’s a high calling. Don’t let yourself believe that you’re just a housekeeper or a sandwich-maker or a bed-maker, though I pray you value those things.
No, by God’s grace, you are a disciple-maker.
You are a mother.
And one day, may the greatest thing said of your mothering be that you passed on a genuine faith. Pass it on with all your heart, and let God do the rest.
“Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”
