Do Not Despair, Dear Mother!

Discouragement. A word some many moms are all too familiar with. The devil comes and softly whispers in the ear: “What are you making of your life? What are you really accomplishing?” He often finds a special foothold with this line of questioning in the heart of stay-at-home mothers. The mundane seems to be constant. We do the dishes, make the food, clean the clothes, notice everything around the house that needs to be done and then we take it on ourselves to do it. We remind our children, listen to them, help them, and discipline them. Some of us even educate them. We take care of every illness, complaint, and need in the family. 

Our attention is constantly diverted from what we would like to do, to what needs to be done. Our desires are put onto the backburner, and our accomplishments are in the seemingly trivial elements of life. We organized the pantry today. We can’t tell you the number of diapers we changed, spills we cleaned up, or clothes we folded, but we know it was a LOT. The only task of merit that we even remember accomplishing was that pantry. And was that really a big deal? It needed to be done, sure, but it doesn’t feel like that amazing of an accomplishment when it’s the only thing you can say you did in an entire day, and yet somehow you know you were working constantly. No one seems to notice most of what we did either. It’s all just expected because we are “mom”. We are not paid for this work, except in the hugs from our children and the love of our family. 

So, is it any surprise that there comes a day where we stop and wonder if this is all that we’re going to accomplish in this life? What about a career? Notoriety? Success? Will we never be able to climb the ladder and do something BIG with our life? 

As mothers we have given up everything just to raise our children. We’ve given up more than a career in doing this. We have entered into an ongoing process of offering our entire selves up in sacrifice for others. We are called on to act selflessly at all times in this vocation. Self-denial is in fact the daily object of a mother. She does not get to accomplish tasks she desires to do or work at the speed she desires to work at. She doesn’t get to interact with adults with whom she can carry on a rewarding conversation. She is not flattered by “thank you’s” for doing her job so well. Her check list of “to do’s” never ends, and her time is never her own. 

Would she like to sit in silence to accomplish something for a few minutes? That’s nice, but there is a crying child who needs her attention. She must get up and go to that child, being patient and loving. If she isn’t patient, she feels a deep sense of guilt that preys upon her mind. How could she be so impatient and irritable when she loves this child so much? What’s wrong with her anyway? Why can everyone else do this so well but she can’t? And now look at what she has added to the life of sacrifice: failure. She feels she has failed at being a wonderful mother. And then the deeper she goes into that hole of despair. She feels discouraged and incapable. Wouldn’t it be better if she just got a job? That way she could feel like her life is worth something because she would at least be accomplishing things of merit, and her kids wouldn’t see the side of her she hates. Everyone would be happier. That’s what she thinks, anyway.

The mother who continues her life of sacrifice for her children is in fact a warrior. She is in a spiritual battle of epic proportions. She wages war against herself every day and every night, and she is driven not by money or power or notoriety but simply by her great and abounding love. To be driven by love, and rewarded only with love, takes a view of life that is not from the world. The world sees success so differently from this and it tells us that a successful life comes from what you accomplish in raising up the corporate ladder and in the paycheck that you receive for doing so. 

But a mother who is devoted to her family battles this message, along with her own doubts and the failings she is so well acquainted with, in order to give her very life in service to those she loves. It is in walking this path that a mother learns the true cost of love. Love requires the giving of self, the same as the Lord Jesus gave us, and this is no menial feat. This is the greatest career possible with eternal consequences. She is, in fact, a warrior for Christ Jesus. May the Lord bless all mothers in their arduous and impactful calling.