Made for More than Motherhood

Motherhood has always been at the top of my vocational wish list. As a high schooler, I daydreamed about bunk beds and minivans. When it was time to pick my major in college, I went with finance because I wanted a degree I could eventually use in home management. So you can imagine my surprise, three years into motherhood, when I felt suffocated by the mundanity of it all. 

I knew motherhood mattered. I knew it was important. And after three miscarriages, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. But somehow, I still had a nagging feeling that I was made for more than this. Didn’t I have more to offer the world than just rocking babies and entertaining toddlers? What about my passion for teaching the Bible? What about my desire to lead? To disciple? To write? Why did all my best energy have to go to the repetitive tasks of making meals and potty training? Why did my schedule have to be defined by naptime and playtime? 

An Uncomfortable Tension

After years of anticipation, motherhood dropped into my lap like a ton of bricks, stripping me of tasks I enjoyed and handing me new tasks I disliked. As a Christian who loved my kids, I wasn’t sure what to do with my disappointment. I felt two things simultaneously: I immensely enjoyed my children and delighted in their presence. But I also felt restless and unfulfilled. I still longed for more. What was I missing?

Have you been there?

When motherhood starts to lose its luster, when we begin to feel restless, when that longing for more nags at our hearts—we tend to do one of two things. We either look for something else to do or we try to make motherhood more meaningful. The first is problematic because we don’t always have the option to do anything else. And even if we do find something to do, that thing also won’t be enough! But the second, though it may seem godly, is also problematic. When we try to make motherhood meaningful enough to fit the God-sized craving in our hearts, we end up putting too much pressure on ourselves and our children. Eventually we’ll crush the relationship we have with our kids under the weight of our longings for significance.

So what do we do with our longings for more?

The More We’re Made For

We all crave meaning. The desire for a life that matters is hard-wired into us. Living with purpose is so deeply ingrained in the human heart that we now have an entire genre of books, classes, and resources dedicated to helping people discover their purpose in life and gain the tools to live it out. Some tell us to dream big and do extraordinary things. Some tell us to think small and do ordinary things. But all of these resources focus our attention on our doing: What you do and how you do it is where you’ll find a sense of meaning. 

But when I began to research this topic myself in the pages of my Bible, I found a surprising answer. My purpose isn’t a specific task like writing. It’s not a skillset or passion like teaching the Bible. My spiritual gifting is not my purpose. My family is not my purpose. My purpose isn’t an activity; it’s a Person. 

Colossians says it this way: “All things were created through him and for him” (1:16; emphasis mine). First Corinthians says it this way: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (8:6; emphases mine). Isaiah says it this way: “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made . . . The people whom I formed for myself” (43:7, 21; emphases mine). My purpose isn’t attached to roles but to a Person. I was made for God and for his glory!

Motherhood Cannot Give Us Meaning

This made sense of my restlessness in motherhood. Being a mom really isn’t enough. It’s not what we were ultimately made for. We were made for something so much bigger! We are made for the very Person of the Living God. And nothing but him will satisfy our deep ache for purpose, meaning, and significance. Nothing but his very presence will satiate our longing for more because he didn’t make us for motherhood but for himself! 

This truth—that the “more” I’m made for is Jesus—infused my mothering with more joy and contentment than I’d ever experienced before. I was no longer afraid of or surprised by my longing for more. It simply became a signal to my heart to reconnect with Jesus. I no longer had disdain for the parts of motherhood I didn’t enjoy. Even on the days when my kids were sick or disobedient or annoying, Jesus was with me, inviting me to live the day with him and for him—promising me that he sees what’s done in secret. 

But this truth doesn’t just benefit our felt experience of motherhood; it also makes us better moms. It takes our eyes off motherhood and sets them back on the person of Jesus. Instead of living for our kids, we live for Christ. Instead of running after a new thing to do or the next stage of parenting, we run the race that is set before us each day.[1] That race might be homeschooling or going back to work. It might be taking a child to basketball practice or speech therapy. It might be teaching a skill or thinking through appropriate consequences. Whatever leg of the race that’s set before us, we run it with Jesus and for Jesus. 

We were made for more than motherhood. We were made for the galaxy-designing, sunset-painting, season-scheduling, eternal, living God! Nothing but his very presence will ever be enough. As we live every day of our lives with him and for him, our work as moms will become more joyful and satisfying than we ever thought possible.

[1] Hebrews 12:1-2