How Mothering Changes, but Then Again, Doesn’t

Seasons sure do come and go as a mom. Here I am on the cusp of having an empty nest and I wonder, like most parents, where has the time gone? How can I soak it all up? And how do I get prepared for what’s ahead? 

The four seasons of the calendar year are marked by specific and predictable dates. Not mothering.  I’ve never been consciously aware of or absolutely ready for any of the upcoming changes that have come along with the next season of parenting. From the first time I laid eyes on my first, to the last years I’m having at home with my lasts, it seems like the daily grind, combined with the chaos of the highs and lows, trumps any ability to anticipate what might be around the corner.  

There are lots of things that we think about in our minds and feel in our hearts when we do take the time to stop and reflect upon a season that has come and gone. For example, my favorite season of mothering my five kiddos (so far) was probably the toddler through primary school-aged years.  If I’d known it would end up being my favorite, I might have stopped to smell the dandelion bouquets a little bit more.  Or read “One Fish, Two Fish” a few extra times in my sing-songy voice.  Or caught a longer glimpse of their big wheel buggies spinning around the driveway in circles as they chased each other for hours. Here I am, years later, pausing for reflection and there’s a flurry of emotions—joy, thankfulness, a little bit of sadness, and a dash of regret.

So much has changed since that season, but then again, there are many things that have stayed the same.  And these things that have stayed the same for me are probably true for you as well.  From the time before you became a mom, really, before you even conceived your first child, there were realities coming to fruition in your life.  They then carry on as you raise your children.  And, as I can only guess, these truths will continue on into grandparenthood as well. 

I’d like to present a few of many and try to encourage you in them.

Mothering makes you vulnerable.  Seems like a strange one to start with, but it’s the first thing that came to mind and I immediately resonated with it.  As I was reading 1 Samuel Chapter 1,looking at Hannah’s story, I noticed how raw and exposed she was as she walked through infertility in the midst of being traumatized within her own family.  When she prayed and shared her pain and her longings with her husband and Eli the priest, she held nothing back.  She was vulnerable to the LORD and to others as she begged for Him to bless her with a child.  There’s nothing that makes you more vulnerable than being a mother and most of us can attest that the begging before God has only just begun when you are blessed with the knowledge that you are going to have a child.

Mothering is an endless sacrifice.  Many of us moms feel uncomfortable verbalizing this because we don’t like to think more highly of ourselves and what we do than we should, but it’s so true. It’s okay to recognize that being a mother involves giving up one thing after another for the sake of the other.  It’s what believers are called to and mothers, well, they give so much.  Eve was actually called “Eve” because her name literally meant, “life-giver”(Genesis 3:20). A mother’s body is the sacrificial means by which a child is carried and nourished.  Adoptive moms, too, because the physical costs of caring for a child over the years are real. Mothers also give sacrificially of our minds and our hearts, season after season, as we plan, protect and pray, love and long for the Lord’s intervention in our children’s lives, and give and give and give only to do it some more.  What a privilege, what a sacrifice.

Mothering sanctifies you.  When Jesus told his followers that He was the true vine and that His Father was the vinedresser (John 15: 1), He was not speaking directly to mothers. But boy—but girl!– is there a lesson here in this verse for each and every mom out there.  You will need to stay close to and abide with your Heavenly Father as you mother. Season after season, the needs within you, for your children and within your family may look different but the provision will be the same: Apart from Him, apart from Jesus, you can do nothing (verse 5). And guess what?  You will get pruned in the process.  You will learn things about yourself that you didn’t even care to know as you parent your children.  The call is to dwell with Him and in Him, in His love, day after day.  He will sustain you as He sanctifies you.

Mothering is redeeming.  Can I just say with this last point that there will be all sorts and kinds of ruins in our mothering journeys?  Somehow, a few seasons ago, I believed there wouldn’t be any disasters or rubble to clean up, and if there was, it wouldn’t amount to much.  Who was I kidding?  Rather, what world was I living in?  Since then, I’ve come to better terms with the brokenness in the world around me—and within me, within my children.  We are cracked vessels and the reality of our stuff comes seeping out, sometimes in heaps.  One thing that we can surely hold on to is this:  Christ has made a way for us to repair the ruins and rebuild what was broken in our souls and within our relationships with our children.  This, of course, is redemption, and it’s spiritual in nature but is so very practical as well as it plays out in our everyday lives as moms.  God is real.  His redemption is real and revival has been made possible for us. And for our children.

Only God knows what lies ahead for me in the next season of mothering. Only He knows what’s around the corner for you as a mom.  I think the goal for us all, in every season of our mothering journeys, as we move forward, is to pray and love and serve God and our children until we can genuinely come to a place where we can say, “That’s a good thing.”  It’s a good thing that seasons come and go.  It’s a good thing that certain mothering truths don’t and won’t ever, change.  And it’s a good and gracious thing that God Himself, who is the center of it all, stays the same in and through it all. Season after season, He stays the same.

A Prayer for Mothers Today:

Lord, we pray for the moms reading this today and for the children they are privileged to mother.  We thank you for each of them, and for all the sacrifices they make day in and day out as they give life, sustain life, speak life and live life unto You and for their families.  Where there is longing, fill them with hope.  Where there is need of pruning, give them your grace as you replace not-so-good fruit with the best kind of fruit.  And where there are ruins, Lord, bring restoration and revival as you teach them to rely upon your merciful redemption.  We thank you for being behind us, for staying beside us, and for going before us in all seasons.  In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.