Mothering generations together, for His glory and to bring HIs light, His truth into the faith legacy of the next generation.
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As I look into the soft blue eyes of my precious Sarah, as she is softly singing to baby Samuel and kissing his cheek, I am deeply touched by the beauty I never knew I would see or the deep joy I would experience. I couldn’t have known when I was a young mama the miracle of watching each of my children as adults fulfilling their destinies and callings in such deep and meaningful ways. When they were tiny babies, my eyes could not see that far or understand the mystery and grace ahead for me.
I never knew how much I would love being a mother. Now that my children are adults, I realize that they are truly, (next to Clay) the best companions, loving friends, inspiring mentors I have. It is a privilege to serve them, be their confidante, pray for them, spend time together, because they have given so generously to me.
Sarah and I have just spent 3 weeks together as she mothered her own precious newborn, Samuel, and delightful and very engaged, Lilian! And I got to come along to love and support her. We were talking about how people always say that some women have “Daddy” issues because of not having a good father. But what about “mother” issues.
A mother is created to be a support, a thoughtful friend, a best companion, a spiritual mentor, one who celebrates, encourages, and loves unconditionally through all the seasons. We all need a very present mama and it is a loss when we lose such a mother or have never had one. Motherhood is part of the glue that holds civility, grace and the world together.
Motherhood was designed by God to be a role of honor, sacred, to help keep His purposes alive in the world. We must remember that to be a mother who serves God is not simply a choice but a mandate.
Why do I embrace the call of motherhood? Why do I think it is a worthy call to love, serve and embrace our children?
When we become Christians, we commit our lives to the Lord and say, "I will serve you. I will love you. I will do anything for you!"
And so, God says, "Children are a blessing, the fruit of the womb is a reward."
And so we treat this bundle of children as a blessing and receive them as a reward from his hand, by faith and worship of HIm.
His best and perfect will is for us to cherish, protect and nurture what He has called a gift.
In Genesis 1, when He blessed Adam and Eve, He called out to that blessing, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth."
Before the fall, when the world was perfect, God’s blessings and holy mandate was to “Be fruitful and multiply.”—to have children was an organic, loving, natural design imagined by God at the beginning of creation.
To worship Him well means we are to embrace as good and as a blessing what he called good and blessed.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 reminds us, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
If we are mothers yet we resist the call of motherhood, the call to spiritually shape the foundations, heart and faith of our children, then we resist God, as He designed it to be eternally significant and meaningful. We cannot say we will love and serve God and then refuse to see our children as a ministry from Him.
All babies come into the world fragile, in need of comfort, love, food, protection, and learning life from the hands of the mom and dad who gave them life. Since God created them so, we have the opportunity to imprint their brains with impressions of what love is like when we caress them and embrace them and sing to them, so their little brains will believe, when they understand words, that God truly is a loving Creator. When we provide rest and comfort and verbal stimulation by talking to them, we are preparing their little brains with pathways of intelligence so that they can understand words and eventually truth and so on.
If God made babies this way, then it is God's will for us to embrace our opportunity to effect eternity by loving, cherishing, serving the ones God gave to us as gifts, whose lives will have implications for all of eternity. Our children, then, are not an interruption, but God's best plan for us to come to understand His own servant leadership, to see that He has placed in our hands the opportunity to be a part of shaping a mind, soul and body.
And so we embrace motherhood with our whole heart because it is an abundantly beautiful way we get to worship and serve Him, but accepting these little, fragile, innocent, waiting for our open arms, babes.. We cannot say we love and serve Him and then reject that gift that He has placed into our hands.
When mothers love well and hold up spiritual ideals as a foundation for life, it is a defense against the draw and appeal of a secular godless culture. Every act of generosity and kindness is laying one more brick to build a house of faith for each child, each person living in the context of your lifegiving acts of kindness. It is not the big or monetarily expensive investments of our lives that build godly children, but the daily, small acts of giving and serving that sinks into their hearts.
“As it is, after eighteen years, (now 36 years) of learning the truth of living sacrificially, I have found that embracing God’s call to motherhood once and for all has brought me great peace. Instead of seeing fusses and messes as irritations in my day, for instance, I am more likely to see them as opportunities to train my children to be peacemakers and to learn to be responsible for their own messes. Instead of resenting the interruptions in my schedule, I am more likely to accept them as divine appointments. More and more, I have learned to see my children through the eyes of God and to accept the stages of growth through which he has designed them to grow.” Sally Clarkson, from Mission of Motherhood
So, I am praying for God to give sweet mothers a love for their children and a heart for their calling. Grace and peace in the midst of your sweet ones today.
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