The Calling of Motherhood — Carol McLeod Ministries

For thousands of years and in a myriad of cultures, women have forged identity, unconditional love, and vast purpose in the calling of motherhood. From Eve to Sarah to Leah to Hannah to Ruth to Elizabeth to Mary, the Scriptures are filled with the stories of the heart of a woman who was given the divine opportunity to raise the next generation by a call of the Father. When I get to heaven, I can’t wait to sit down with the mothers who went before me and ask them the questions that every mother desires to ask:  

• How did you milk the goats, manage a clean tent, and keep a toddler away from scorpions in the desert?  

• Was it hard to make sure that young David stayed away from lions and tigers and bears? Oh, my!  

• What did you do when Abraham took Isaac up the mountain? What were you feeling in that moment?  

• Were you embarrassed when John chose to wear camel hair and eat locusts as a teenager?  

However, the heart that I most desire to inspect is the heart of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.  

But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. —Luke 2:19 

Inside the soul of every mother lies a heart that becomes a repository of sweet memories, hard lessons, glorious victories, ordinary days, glaring failures, and God’s grace over the years of mothering. The heart of a mother becomes home to jokes around the dinner table, holiday traditions, the tears of childhood, and the love that only a mother knows.  

This tender heart that has given birth to the future of mankind or has lovingly adopted the seeds of the next generation also develops rooms of unsurpassed greatness and quiet strength.  

In every generation, mothers must answer the call to be what no one else can be for their children and do what no one else is able to do for their children. Mothers must accept the biblical call to motherhood, or we will be guilty of producing a generation who wanders in the wilderness of moral deficiency, racial division, and underdeveloped conscience. I am not suggesting that mothers are the cause of society’s ills, nor are they mankind’s saviors, but the future of our nation, our schools, our church, our neighborhoods, and our world depends largely upon what we do with the children under our care.  

A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. —Cardinal Gaspard Mermillod 

Is there a calling that is more significant or more glorifying to God than motherhood? I think not!  

We live in a society and culture in which the call to motherhood is denigrated or scoffed at.  

We are told that a woman loses her identity in motherhood and that the years spent wiping noses, changing diapers, and reading books are the wasted years of a woman’s life. My friend, nothing could be farther from the truth than those words of cultural deception. I believe that it is possible to strategically find yourself in motherhood, to discover talents and strengths that you have never before tapped into during the rich and beautiful season of being called “Mommy” by a tribe of little people.  

If you want to change the world, then decide that you will passionately mother the ones you have been given to raise.  

I also fiercely believe that it is possible to make a long-lasting impact on the world when you give yourself to training the children under your watch. If you want to change the world, then decide that you will passionately mother the ones you have been given to raise. Money does not equal significance and promotions do not communicate value.  

It is in dying to self that we become significant in the kingdom of our Creator and it is in serving others that we achieve true greatness. The Word’s way has never been the world’s way.  

Let me hasten to say that I realize that women must often work outside the home to pay the bills, save for college, and feed their children. I understand and I realize that motherhood requires great adjustment and challenges. What I deeply desire that you understand as you read the pages of this book is that motherhood is the highest calling a woman embraces; it is not an inevitable frustration added in to an already busy life.  

When a woman works outside the home, it is not a betrayal of motherhood, nor is it an alliance with the culture. It is often a serious necessity. Please be kind to yourself as a mother and as a woman whether you are able to stay home, work part-time, or work full-time. The chief principle should be to give your whole heart to your children in the times that you are together. This is a foundational aspect of motherhood.  

Home is the nicest word there is. —Laura Ingalls Wilder 

When you truly understand the deep purpose of motherhood, the joy will come rushing into your home and into your heart. If you falsely believe that you are merely a babysitter, a cook, a maid, or a laundress, there will be little joy in your area of influence. However, if you are finally able to convince yourself that you are changing the course of history for the kingdom of God, it is in that miraculous moment that the lavish joy of motherhood will come rushing into your life in magnificent proportions.  

Joy always follows knowing one’s purpose. You, as a mother, are a woman of eternal and perpetual purpose! History would not be complete without the lives of the little ones whose diapers you are changing today. There would be a vacuum in the course of humanity without the talents and creativity of the children who are finger painting at your kitchen table today.  

You are raising the Daniels, the Esthers, and the Peters of the next generation, so do it with unbridled joy! The most expansive work you will ever complete will be among the ordinary people whom you know the best and love the most.  

All of heaven is roaring in approval at the joy that you are cultivating in motherhood!  

And this is what I can guarantee you: for every long night, God gives His own strength to weary mothers who simply ask for it. For every early and daunting morning, He delivers His faithfulness to mothers who spend time with Him. Cry if you must, knowing that even your tears are precious to Him and not one of them goes unnoticed in the throne room of God.  

Every prayer you have prayed has been heard, sweet mama. He has inclined His very ear over the gates of heaven and has given you His undivided attention. Every desire you have whispered to your heavenly Father is not forgotten. Your desires are of utmost importance to Him. He longs to hear you express your heartfelt desires and then lay them at His nail-scarred feet.  

Every song you choose to sing in the middle of piles of Legos, macaroni and cheese stuck to the kitchen cabinet, and little ones clinging to your legs is a glorious anthem to heaven’s ears. God smiles when a mother sings!  

God is well able to give you the grace that you need for every challenging day or even for every mundane day of mothering.  

He loves your children so much more than you ever could and He has chosen to partner with you in developing their character, their temperament, and their walk of faith. Your greatest accomplishment this side of heaven may have little to do with your college degree, the level of income that you accrue, or the awards that you garner. Your greatest accomplishment in life will inevitably be someone whom you have raised.  

You have been chosen to raise the specific children in your home—I dare you to do it with grace, with strength, with honor, and with joy!  

You are enough, dear mother. You are more than enough because you have the Father.  

Thanks for listening to my heart this week.  As you know by now, my heart is truly not a perfect heart but it is a heart that is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the life I have been given and for the people who walk with me.  And, it continues to be a heart that is relentlessly chasing after God and all that He is.