Motherhood Refresh: Looking Forward to the Future!

I live in the northeast where we have cute little bunnies with cute little ears, so I was excited to visit Arizona and spot some no-nonsense, long-eared desert rabbits. But when we went for a drive, I got distracted and forgot to look for rabbits. My daughter sat in the back seat and looked out the window with wide eyes, expecting to see a rabbit dart from behind a cactus. Guess who saw desert rabbits. My daughter. Guess who missed out. I did. We tend to see what we expect to see. If we forget—or don’t know to look for something—we may miss it.

The journey of motherhood is replete with good gifts from God, and I don’t want us to miss them. I want us to expect, look for, and receive them along the way. Only now, with seventeen years of motherhood under my belt, am I beginning to understand the things a woman can truly expect as she walks with God through motherhood. I want to share a few of them with you as we venture into the next leg of our motherhood journey. Keep your eyes open! You’re going to see something beautiful.

Expect God to Care about Who You are Becoming

Whether motherhood feels exhausting or exciting, God is with you. Every day (and every night), God is forming treasures in you as you care for your child. These treasures grow with time as you abide in Christ, day by day. In every season of motherhood, God invites us to surrender our thoughts and emotions to the truths of His Word. He also invites us to talk to Him, even when the only word we can utter is, “Help!” One of my favorite things about God in motherhood is His invitation for us to rest in Him and to delight in who He is. 

God cares about who you are becoming as you raise your child, and He wants you to experience the joy of becoming more like Christ because He has been with you in the big moments and the mundane. (Motherhood hasn’t changed that one bit.) So look for Him as He gives you wisdom through His Word. Look for the way He makes you brave in the face of fear. Look for Him to strengthen your trust in His promises. And look for (oh so many) opportunities to worship Him as you mother your child.

Expect Jesus to Be Your Dearest Friend

One of my favorite verses about motherhood is Isaiah 40:11.

He protects his flock like a shepherd;
he gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them in the fold of his garment.
He gently leads those that are nursing.

Jesus is the Shepherd. Our children are His lambs. And you and I are the mama ewes. Do you know how a shepherd cares for a mama ewe? He feeds her with nutrient-dense food, cool clean water, rest, and protection from her enemies. Similarly, Jesus cares for you and me by feeding us with His Word (Yes, even when it’s one verse on an index card by the kitchen sink or a children’s Bible verse song). He restores us through prayer and repentance. He protects us and steadies our feet through obedience and fellowship with other Christians.

No matter what we are feeling, any thought, any circumstance—whether we feel joyful and connected or anxious and angry—God is sustaining us through those feelings and during those feelings. He guides us to make choices that honor Him, and to repent when we don’t. As we are loved and led by our Good Shepherd, we learn how to love and lead and serve others like He does. 

This verse also reassures us that Jesus cares deeply for our children. Just think: as He holds them close to His heart, He is even closer to them than we are. He knows them by name and can work at the soul-level to grow, strengthen, and redeem our precious kids. Whenever your child’s needs overwhelm you, pray. When it comes to the future (especially regarding my kids), I am leaning heavily on Ephesians 3:20–21, which says, “Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” I hope you will trust this great God, too, for He can do infinitely more than we imagine. 

As you look ahead to the next season of motherhood, know this: Jesus will take such good care of you. And He will take such good care of your child.

His care will not change over time. Even when we are no longer “mama ewes,” God promises to care for us: 

“Listen to me, house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been sustained from the womb,
carried along since birth.” (Isa. 46:3)

Expect Jesus to Take Every Act of Love Personally

Jesus said that when He returns in all His glory and gathers all the nations before His throne, He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 

Matthew 25:31–46 goes on to teach us that when all is said and done, we will discover that our faith in Christ transformed the way we lived: we’ll see that He enabled us to love people—to lay our lives down for their well-being. We’ll be grateful for every person we clothed, fed, and visited, because it was as though Christ Himself received our kindness. He was “hiding himself in weakness” as Bonhoeffer said¹, blessing us with opportunities to love and serve people for his sake.

As moms, we can expect this to speak right to our hearts because, well, let me ask you this:

Do you remember the moment you saw your child’s face for the first time? You were welcoming a stranger into your life. 

Remember when you fed your child? You were giving the hungry something to eat. 

And when you filled your child’s cup with water, you were giving the thirsty something to drink. 

When you bought, borrowed, washed, dried, and put away your child’s clothing, you were clothing the naked. 

When you took a temperature, wiped a nose, and snuggled your child, you were visiting the sick. 

When you reminded your child of God’s grace through Jesus, you were showing a prisoner the open door. 

And Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40).

You and I—as mothers—are truly blessed. Not only is Christ with us, enabling us to raise and nurture our children for His glory, but also, Christ has come right to our door, a stranger to be welcomed in. He is dwelling in our homes, sitting at our breakfast tables, keeping watch through the night, and taking every act of our love personally. Look for Him!

Hey, moms! Don’t forget: True Woman ’22 has breakout sessions just for you! Check out the offerings by Jani Ortlund; Dannah Gresh, Janet Mylin, and Shani McKenzie; and Kathryn Butler on the Breakouts page, then register at TrueWoman22.com.

¹ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1978), 107.