I hope you gave more heed to your mother’s wisdom regarding marriage, parenting … life than I did. But I’m a slow learner, and often learn the hard way. Shortly after our firstborn arrived, my mother remarked that with the arrival of children, “your life will never be the same.” Ridiculous, I thought with all of my 23-year-old arrogance, certain that our little bundle of joy would soon fit into our household and life would continue according to plan. However, David Lane and his brother John Douglas, coming four years later, changed our lives forever, in surprising ways—but all for the good, my good and God’s glory!

The scriptures call children a blessing from the Lord (Ps. 127). But that state of blessing (state of happiness or prosperity) often take us down paths that we never would have chosen for ourselves. Job observed that the man was also blessed whom God reproves. (5:17) Our sons shook both of us loose from our well-ordered lives and paved the way to learning other-centered living; to the acknowledgment that we were desperate for divine wisdom and at times, divine intervention; to the rude awakening that our children’s less desirable behavioral traits were sometimes a reflection of our own; and to the understanding that while we nurture, train, and educate, ultimately, God gives the growth and does that work in the heart which only He can do in His good time.

The prophet Malachi echoed God’s words spoken in the beginning over that first marriage – “Be fruitful and multiply” – when he reminded God’s people of his day that multiplication in the kingdom of God was one of God’s purposes for marriage:

Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was He seeking? Godly offspring. Malachi 2:15a

While some in our culture are demanding “reproductive rights,” let those of us who are followers of Jesus raise our voices in celebration of “reproductive privilege,” the privilege of motherhood and bearing life made in the likeness of God with all the potential of giving greater glory to our Maker. Bearing life can take many forms; not all of us will have biological children; but all of us are suited to some degree to ‘mother’ those who are younger in the faith. Elisabeth Elliot* wrote:

“Motherhood requires self-giving, sacrifice, suffering—it is going down into death in order to give life, a great human analogy of a spiritual principle … Womanhood is a call. It is a vocation to which we respond under God, glad if it means the literal bearing of children, thankful as well for all that it means in a much wider sense, that in which every woman, married or single, fruitful or barren, may participate … the strength to answer this call is given us as we look up toward the Love that first, most literally imagined sexuality that made us at the very beginning real men and real women. As we conform to that Love’s demands we shall become more humble, more dependent—on Him and on one another—and even, (dare I say it?) more splendid.”

My mother was right; motherhood changed me forever.

In what ways will you answer God’s call to motherhood?

* Elliot, Elisabeth, “Let Me Be a Woman,” Tyndale House, Carol Stream, IL, page 53.

Feminism God’s Way … 
How Can We Take Back What Has Been Lost?

Women of all ages & stages are invited for a five-week informal gathering on Monday evenings to explore God’s perspective of womanhood using a classic, Elisabeth Elliott’s “Let Me Be a Woman,” starting July 1st; the Kirkwood area. For more information, call Karen at 314-406-7073.