Motherhood: Discipleship Begins in the Home

Motherhood is a million little moments that God weaves together with grace, redemption, laughter, tears, and most of all, love.

-Lysa TerKeurst

As little girls, we dream of the day we will have a family of our very own, with children to raise, nurture and love, and a home to look after and a husband who loves us. It’s a beautiful ideal filled with aspirations and so much hope and anticipation. But somewhere along the way, motherhood can take a toll. The once rose-colored vision of our ideal becomes filled with frustration, exhaustion and disappointed hope. And in these times, I think we can easily lose sight of our mission as moms. Somehow our purpose and design gets lost in the mundane, like the sock that you can never find its pair. We get a little lost in the tumble cycle of life.

Sister in Christ, I want to encourage you: Motherhood is the most important mission field you will ever step on. Your children are the ones whom God is calling you to love and and to disciple. I’m sure you’ve heard it said before, but it’s true. There are a million little chances each day, to teach your child, to love him or her, to show them what it looks like to follow Christ, to make mistakes, to ask for forgiveness and to start again. It’s up to us, to model for them forgiveness, grace and what it looks like to grow in our walk with the Lord. We have the distinct honor of pointing them to Christ.

When my oldest was probably three or four years old, I started to see some really big sin issues rising up in his heart. Isn’t it crazy to watch the sin and selfishness come out of these little ones? They don’t have to be taught it, they are just sinful by nature. The truth is, we all struggle with this sin, every single day. And therein lies the most beautiful picture we can point them to: we are all sinners, in need of a Savior. Unfortunately as moms, our first instinct isn’t always to respond with patience and a heart to teach our children. For me at least, my reactions usually looked like short-tempered anger and frustration. But one day, the Holy Spirit pressed on my heart that I should be using these trouble spots to teach my children, to point them back to Christ, and to show them what it looks like to be sanctified by the Word. So I started using Scripture to help him learn what God says about these big issues he was facing. I didn’t want him to obey just “because I said so” but because it was something that he is called to, as a child of God. We started working through scriptures like “In your anger, do not sin” Ephesians 4:26 when he would push his sister or display angry defiance towards me. We memorized the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, and “Do to others as you would have them do to you” in Luke. It was beautiful to watch his little heart soften and become open to the Word. I realized that this is a huge part of my calling in Motherhood. It’s not something I’m perfect at by any means, but it is something I strive make a regular part of my home. Recently, my daughter has been having a hard time with being scared at night before bed. So we memorized Bible verses like “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8. Scripture has the answers and instructions and encouragement we need: it is the most effective tool in the raising up of these children God has given us.

One of my favorite verses that talks about this is in Deuteronomy…

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 

Deut. 6:4-7

This is God’s design for us: that we might make disciples and teach our children every day from the Word of God. I think when I was younger in my motherhood years, I didn’t know what this looked like practically. I didn’t know how to disciple my children or what it looked like to teach them these lessons. But it truly is as simple as applying the Word of God to their every day issues, and walking through it with them.

This also means we need to be steeped in the Word of God ourselves so that His Word can overflow from us, to them. The practice of this is a beautiful safeguard for our own hearts. It reminds us to be patient and have grace because we are not perfect either. We are all in the process of sanctification, and we need to teach our children from a place of humility and vulnerability. Many times, the things I am teaching my children, I need to be reminded of myself, just as much as they do. When those times come up, I’m honest and open with them. I share what I struggle with and how God is working in me to refine and correct me, too. And the times when I blow it completely, I come back and apologize, because they need to see that humility and dependance on Christ lived out.

I’ve discovered that this act of mothering is my worship to Him right now: dying to self and delighting in them. There is failure, (oh yes – it is messy and sloppy sometimes) yet there is forgiveness and grace and growing.

Lovelyn Palm