Coming Up Short: Measuring Motherhood in Light of the Gospel
My oldest will be five years old in February, and I’m still trying to figure out what work means for me as a stay-at-home mom. I long for some way to measure progress—to convince myself I’m doing well. When my days resemble a hamster wheel—rotating laundry and cooking and cleaning and running errands over and over and over but never feeling truly productive—I stagger under the weight of my own inefficiency. I’m not a neat freak, but I do yearn for a clean house and a nutritious meal to prove my worth.
Motherhood is work. It’s hard. Part of why it feels like slogging through sticky mud is because there isn’t a way to measure if we’re doing it well; if we try to judge ourselves by our child’s progress or behavior, we’re slapping them with the heaviness of validating us. Somehow, motherhood requires pouring into these tiny people—diligently training them and loving them and teaching them the power of the gospel—yet not using any of their growth to glorify ourselves or their stagnancy to bemoan our own failures. They are our charges, and yet they are not our measuring stick—and neither is the house.
In my home, many rooms are scribbled with crayons. We have scratches on the hardwoods where someone dragged a chair down the hall—long lines that make perfect roads for Hot Wheels cars. I’ve found Legos in the floor vents. Missing shoes tucked into decorative vases. Books yanked off the shelves, then replaced backward, so all you see are pages and not titles. I feel the tension of needing to teach these little people how to tidy and respect our home while not making them think that we need to live in a museum. I want both to work diligently and also to not stress if the basket of unfolded, clean clothes has sat so long in the laundry room someone thought it was a pile of dirties and tossed wet towels on top. I want to live well but also see the end of the day as really the beginning—receiving sleep as an act of faith when the dishes aren’t finished and the floors are still sticky with our morning oatmeal.
I want to industriously steward my responsibilities but also humbly honor my limitations—and my children’s. I want to reflect our God of order and beauty but also let go of fastidious or obsessive expectations. I want to raise my kids with care and attention, not with the purpose of affirming my own work, but to fulfill the calling God has placed on me as their mother. And while I’m actively avoiding finding my value in my productivity or in the behavior of my kids, I’m also actively trying to use my time wisely because the days are evil.[1]
After almost five years of motherhood, I’m learning to make peace with this juggling act—to see faithfulness as a daily give and take. Something always has to go: I can either finish chopping the onions or attend to the children overflowing the bathroom sink. I can either curl up to read Beatrix Potter alongside my kids or address the upended toy chest in the corner. It’s impossible for me to be all things to all people all the time—but that’s not what I’m called to.
As fully God and fully man, Jesus meets me in my insufficiencies and inabilities to do it all in motherhood. He is the Word made flesh,[2] both humble servant and exalted Savior.[3] He is before all things and holds all things together.[4] He was both a perfect carpenter and a perfect teacher; perfect son and perfect friend. Yet he also understands my weakness because he lived those roles within a limited, human body. I can’t be all things perfectly; but Jesus was, and he did, and that matters. I’m freed now to live in dependence on his perfect work and to pursue Spirit-driven faithfulness in my own:
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. (Colossians 1:21-23)
I may not know how to measure my progress as a mother (although it’s important to evaluate where I spend my time, energy, and affection), but I can rest in this: I’m reconciled to God through Jesus, and because of him, I am now presented as holy and blameless and above reproach. And while I’m Googling ways to remove black crayon from beige walls, I want to devote myself to continuing in my faith, stable and steadfast—not shifting from the hope of the gospel.
So when it’s a Tuesday at 10:55 in the morning, I’m wearing pajamas with snot on them and socks with holes, and I have yet to empty the dishwasher—I rest in this. My heart is full, my debt is paid, and that is far more than enough.
[1] Eph 5:16
[2] John 1:14
[3] Phil 2:8-9
[4] Col 1:17
