Mom, You’re Unique!
Picture that good ‘ol Venn Diagram from elementary school. Right in the middle, where the circles overlap, we see that as moms, we have a lot of things in common—we have shared experiences and fears, and we cross common milestones and ask similar questions. The same is true for us as Christians. We all worship the same triune God. We listen to and submit our lives to the same holy Word. There is incredible unity in our mission, calling, and the way we ought to live as Christians.
And yet, on either side of that diagram, there’s a myriad of differences to take into account. When we think about all that God has for us in motherhood, we need an understanding and appreciation both for the ways he’s called us to the same mission and the ways he’s leading us to live that out differently. Understanding how God’s Word and the gospel come to bear on our lives is what biblical wisdom and decision-making are all about. And this starts by looking at and thinking about our unique circumstances.
Let’s explore some of the aspects of a mom’s life or circumstances that might impact the way she applies God’s Word and gospel principles to her situation.
Who You Are
When we consider who we are as Gospel Moms and how God is working in and through us, we ought to consider the life story that he’s written and is writing for us. No two stories are going to be the same, and that’s not only okay, but that’s also the way he’s designed it.
Consider a few ways that “who you are” and where you came from plays into how you mother—this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, just some questions to give some ideas of how vast and varied the elements are that make you who you are:
How many years have you been a believer and what is your personal journey of faith?
What is your personal experience with church or Christian culture?
What was your journey to motherhood? For example:
Did you enter motherhood via an unexpected pregnancy?
Were you single?
Were you married? If so, were you married happily or was your marriage already under some strain?
Were you afraid of motherhood or excited about it?
Did this journey of motherhood come after a past abortion?
Do you or did you have a good or bad relationship with your own mom and dad?
Do you come from a blended family and/or did you watch your own parents go through relational trauma?
What aspects of your childhood were healthy and what are things you don’t want to repeat?
How is your physical and mental health?
Do you have an acute or chronic health challenge?
Pain or disease?
Are you neurodivergent or neurotypical?
Have you had mental health struggles such as PPD/PPA or a diagnosis of something like OCD or Bipolar disorder?
What are your particular habitual temptations or struggles?
Do you have a history of addiction?
Have you struggled in the past or currently with tobacco, drugs, or alcohol abuse? Pornography or erotica? Or addictions to gambling, food, shopping, media, etc.?
All of your answers to these questions and more will shape the way you approach motherhood.
Your Spouse
If you’re married, everything you do as a couple and as parents impacts one another.
This means that who your husband is—his strengths, weaknesses, interests, leanings, and preferences—must play into your motherhood. Perhaps your husband feels strongly about a particular schooling choice or he’s sensing a call toward overseas missions. Maybe your husband works long hours or he’s highly involved in family life and has a flexible schedule. Some of you have husbands who aren’t believers, are functional unbelievers (even if they go to church), or aren’t fully aligned with what you think God’s Word says in a certain area. In these cases, it takes tremendous care and wisdom to know what to do, along with helpful insight from mentors, pastors, and even counselors.
Regardless of the specifics of your situation, the point stands: your spouse—who they are, what they are like, and what they desire for your children—is going to impact the way you live out your unique gospel motherhood.
Your Family Makeup
If there weren’t enough variables to consider already, now we’re getting into the household itself. How many kids you have, how far apart they are spaced, along with their personalities and unique needs, is all going to impact the decisions you make as a mom. Sometimes when we start to feel judgemental and condemning of other moms’ choices (or of our own—I mean, why is this so hard for me but it’s not hard for her?) we’re not considering the way our household and family dynamics differ. We’re looking at a mom who has all school-age children, and we’re pining to prioritize exercise as she does, but we’re forgetting that we have two kids in diapers who are up multiple times a night. Some of us might be caring for children who are being fostered or adopted. Some might have one or more children with a disability, severe illness, or life-threatening allergies. Each child’s needs, concerns, and personalities are going to play into your choices about childcare, discipline, special activities, screen time limits, schooling, medical care, and more.
Where You Live
Just like Paul notes in many of his epistles, the gospel (though universally applicable and true) plays itself out differently in the context of different cultures and people groups. The same is true for us today. What nation we live in, what culture we grow up in, and what subculture we socialize in with friends, church, and family, all impact what decisions we make in motherhood. Whether we live in a rural community, an urban area, a suburb, or somewhere in between, our setting affects what challenges and options are available to us.
The Things You Care About
Not only does God determine the time and place where each person would live for his glory and purposes, but he uses the unique and varied interests of his children to help minister to the wide variety of needs across the globe.
Think through your own life circumstances and consider areas of ministry or emphasis that God has called you to. Discovering this will also help you make decisions about how the gospel comes to bear in your life. It can help you figure out how to spend your time and energy and focus. And it’s an area that will likely make your life look different from the moms around you—and that’s a beautiful thing! Just because we care deeply about a topic, doesn’t mean we should expect other moms must do the same or deem them unloving, unwise, or ineffective for the Kingdom.
Your Season of Life
Finally, when it comes to considering what gospel motherhood looks like and how you’re going to take the things you’re learning in God’s Word and apply them to your life, it’s important to consider what season you’re in.
The way you apply the gospel when you’re in “the little years” is likely going to look different from the way you do when you have teenagers, even though the overarching principles are the same. The choices you might need to make when you have an ailing parent and elementary schoolers to care for are likely going to be different from what you needed to do when your parent was able to help and offer practical support in your daily life. You might also go through seasons where you have a child obtaining a diagnosis or a child needing treatment for mental health struggles. You may have a season where marriage is easy and fun and a season where it’s not only dull, but it’s taking a lot of commitment and work. You may have a season where you’re able to volunteer three days a week at church, organizing Bible studies and moms’ groups, and then another season where you’re barely able to be involved at all.
Understanding and accepting the ebb and flow of seasons, along with the different joys, freedoms, limitations, and challenges they present can be difficult, but it’s also very helpful as we consider what it means to live our calling as Gospel Moms.
No matter what circumstances God brings, he will lead us to follow him and reflect him in the midst of those. We can acknowledge our hopes and desires for the way that we thought things would be, but evaluate and accept the life that God has actually given us and the place that we actually live with the husband we actually have. We don’t live in the “what if’s.” We live our motherhood in the “what is.”
Though we should each seek to prayerfully and wisely evaluate how to make the best use of our time and resources in motherhood, we shouldn’t consider ourselves automatically “wrong” for looking or living our life differently from the other moms in our church or community. (Let alone those we see on social media.) Your unique life and experience of motherhood can be lived to God’s glory, and that’s a “win” for the kingdom.
This article is adapted from Gospel Mom by Emily Jensen & Laura Wifler copyright © 2024. Used with permission from Harvest House Publishers.
