Being a Mother Isn't Enough, pt 2

Raising children is only one facet of womanhood

What’s your most important job?

Most modern Christian homemakers would name something related to motherhood. Maybe it’s raising children who know the Lord. Perhaps it’s nurturing them, or even simply welcoming them. And all of these are good things.

But what if I told you that motherhood is only a small piece of the wider calling you were given in Christ?

It’s true. Children—bearing them, raising them, training them in the faith—are a vital part of the story God has written for women. Many parts of the process are exclusively ours by His design, and so we grab hold of that and define ourselves by it. But we were never meant to, and when we do so we undermine the bigger picture painted for us.

See, motherhood has a story arc. It has a beginning, a climax, and (whether we choose to accept it or not) an end of sorts. The day will come when the children who can’t live without you today will be (God willing) independent. And what that comes to pass, if you have defined yourself solely as Mother, you will find yourself drifting without an anchor. We call this having an empty nest, but for many, it feels like having an empty soul. Women, told for decades that their purpose is to focus on babies and children, are suddenly adrift in a sea of doubt and insecurity— even as the world is telling them that it’s “finally” time to fulfill all those desires they’ve suppressed in the course of living for others.

What’s a woman to do? Her children grown, she begins casting about for a new purpose. She shops for a job, because she’s told over and over that she has value. She has skills, after all. Skills that she hasn’t used to make money, skills that are marketable. And time! At last she is unfettered from the constraints of needing to make meals and host playdates. She can do the things so many other women opted to do all along— in short, she is unmoored from the home and all that has kept her near it for decades.

And just like that, a woman is no longer uniquely a woman. She is now on equal footing in society, a unisex creature whose main purpose is participating in some facet of the cycle of earning money and spending money.

My Mamaw never viewed motherhood as her highest calling. It was vital, it was beautiful, it was something she cherished— but if you had asked her to define herself in terms of an occupation, she would not have said mother, or even homemaker. She would have creased her brow and pursed her lips the way she did when something ludicrous had just come down the pike, and she would have said:

“Honey, I’m a woman.”

Mamaw understood that that one phrase— “I’m a woman”—encompassed God’s answer to a set of needs common to mankind.

I am a woman; I invest time and energy into providing healthy, nourishing food for my family.

I am a woman; I walk alongside my husband as he endeavors to fulfill his purpose in the Lord.

I am a woman; I care for the needy in my circle.

I am a woman; I celebrate that which is good and noble in my community.

I am a woman; I tend the sick.

I am a woman; I keep a watchful eye out for the wolves and raise the alarm.

I am a woman; I teach those behind me.

I am a woman; I cultivate welcoming spaces for people to gather.

I am a woman; I steward my family’s resources well.

I am a woman; I encourage the downtrodden.

I am a woman; I raise up the next generation.

I am a woman; I am a voice for the voiceless.

I am a woman; I point out injustice.

I am a woman; I clothe the naked.

I am a woman; I grieve with those in mourning.

I am a woman; I share the Gospel in every facet of my life.

These elements of a wider, more wholistic womanhood are seen in mothering, no doubt. But they also exist independently, every bit as needed in today’s world as they were in Mamaw’s day. When we fully step in to accepting that our God-given design is this vast, we are less likely to wrap our value in a weekly paycheck, or see ourselves as diminished when our last child takes wing. Yes, one aspect of our daily duties may have shifted, but oh, all that remains!

There is much work to be done, friends. Our calling is higher than we ever imagined. We are not just mothers. We are women, created by an omnipotent God to do things only we can do— and to do them with a love that always points to His Son, Jesus Christ.

I learned this in watching my Mamaw’s example, and in the coming days, I will share specifics from her gloriously mundane, godly life with you.

In Christ,

Heather