Moms, Encourage Like This
When I am discouraged, I often feel tempted to flee the relational spaces where I’m most likely to find encouragement. Why? Well, because in the past, some words of encouragement hurt more than they helped.
For over a decade, my husband and I woke bleary-eyed each Sunday, hurriedly dressed four Carlson-minis, wrangled them into the van, and spent the morning coaxing them to be polite, say hello, and stay in the nursery without an emotional melt-down. Some weeks, making it through the front doors of the church felt like an enormous accomplishment. I lived desperate for encouragement.
But within the church, the encouragement I most often found annoyed me because it sounded something like this:
Enjoy the little years; babies don’t keep!
It’s a season.
This too shall pass.
Admittedly defensive, I’d outwardly thank the encourager even when, internally, I felt misunderstood or hurt. Could others not relate to my exhaustion or had they simply forgotten? In those moments and in many others over the years, I’ve felt tempted to hide my most tender discouragements from other Christians in order to avoid being noticed or anemically exhorted, even though I also craved robust encouragement.
More than the assurance that one day sleep would return or childish behaviors would subside, I needed words that communicated a more lasting hope that didn’t sound or feel trite or condescending. I often wrote off others’ encouragement because it didn’t feel truth-filled, and I didn’t take courage because the promises weren’t comforting.
Rather than feeling irritated when others couldn’t fully grasp (or articulate) the challenging dynamics in my daily life or speak adequate words, I wish I would have humbly accepted the love they intended to convey. I could have perceived the better promise glimmering behind their words; there is indeed good truth in the fact that all our suffering will one day pass. We can take comfort. The Lord will indeed strengthen us to stand firm and be courageous until that day, even though we feel weak and inadequate.
Encouraged to Good Words
Motherhood teaches soul-thirsty Christians to drink in words of encouragement with eager anticipation.
I’ve always been happy to gulp down compliments and flattery. When my children were well-behaved, I smugly drank my fill of affirmation. It’s nice when people praise us with words like: “I don’t know how you do it. You’re amazing.” But these words can tempt us to believe we are capable of preparing and strengthening ourselves for the days ahead. They can bolster our self-assurance.
Self-assurance, in turn, prevents us from learning and growing in confidence in Christ. Our merciful Savior knows we can only be held firmly by his presence, wisdom, and provision—not by empty encouragements that taste good going down but poison the soul. He will not allow his children to continually numb their soul-pain or permanently flee his lasting healing or comfort. He provides his good Word to complete a better work with our hearts.
Discouragement in parenting drives weary mothers to the good counsel of the Lord, in order to teach us to hunger for his better encouragement.
Encouraged to Good Hope
When we are exhausted and weighed down, we need friends who can encourage us in our work as mothers, wives, family members, friends, and image bearers of Christ. Discouragement teaches us to thirst for encouragement and to discern how to provide God’s better promises of truth to others.
Today, when I pass a weary young mom in the hallways of my church, I am quick to remember the exhaustion—and the annoyance of being told to “enjoy every moment.” Because I remember the tiredness well, I don’t exhort them to overlook the difficulty, because I know the truth. Exhaustion does not prevent them from enjoying motherhood; God’s grace is sufficient in days of struggle.
Today, I fight to provide others with words of better encouragement that are filled with both truth and grace, for their spiritual strengthening. I do so by asking the Spirit to speak his words of life through me, in ways that would administer his better hope and healing. Why? Because I know the Spirit’s wisdom will far surpass the help of tired old clichés.
Christians need to be encouraged not to hope in the empty words or counsel of others, the integrity of our ways, the works of our hands, or our wisdom or riches. Instead, we must be taught to rely on better encouragement. We were created to place our hope in God alone. In order to be strengthened and sustained, we require words of encouragement like this:
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised [to deliver us from sin into the forgiveness of Christ] is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).
“The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:18-19).
“Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters, but his hands heal” (Job 5:17-18).
Encouraging one another through the counsel of God’s Word is not trite or condescending, when we believe it to be good and true. As believers, when we exhort others gently through a well-timed word of truth, our encouragement is an act of love that extends the hope of Christ.
Encouraged to Good Work
The Lord’s encouraging counsel throughout Scripture calls believers to persevere in Christ-centered, Spirit-dependent hope. Hebrews 10:24-25 exhorts us to encourage one another by considering how we might stir up one another to love and good works. We can humbly submit ourselves to this work, by “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another . . . all the more” as we wait for the Lord’s return.
Specifically, this means that if we are to strengthen our own ability to encourage others, we must do so by continually attending and participating in the life of the local church. There, we can encourage one another in faith and perseverance by actively looking for ways to grow in the discipline of encouragement. When believers speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the Spirit plants his words of Christ-centered encouragement inside our hearts, where he will faithfully use them to bolster us both for today and for the stronger storms brewing on the horizon.
Whether or not you’ve realized your need for encouragement before, your soul was made to long for and be sustained by more than simple affirmations of your mothering skills, acknowledgments of your successes, or “helpful” parenting tips or tricks. Christian, your heart desires the better encouragement of the Lord that strengthens God’s people to not “grow weary of doing good” (Galatians 6:9) as you spur one another on for his good pleasure and glory.
“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive . . . will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord . . . and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore [sisters] encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).
