Giving our kids opportunities to wrestle with the uncomfortable and the unknown can help grow their dependency on Jesus and equip them for bigger, harder trials yet to come.

Intentionally seeking out evidence of God’s grace—in ourselves, our children, and even our circumstances—is a powerful and practical way to battle discouragement in motherhood.

While motherhood often brings unexpected challenges, God can accomplish unexpected good and glory in our lives through them.

As we experience different stages of motherhood, we can faithfully cast a vision of God’s faithfulness for those in seasons behind us.

I don’t need to tell you that motherhood is hard work. It’s physically grueling, emotionally exhausting, and intellectually numbing. But one hardship we often overlook as moms is the challenge it makes to our sense of purpose.

Through the consuming trials of motherhood, we lose many of the earthly ways we used to understand the purpose of our lives before—we may no longer work out of the home, our friendships may change, our relationships with our husbands may differ as we make room for the family, and so on.

Because the challenges of motherhood strip away our old identity markers, we are tempted to replace them by finding our purpose in godly motherhood.

Although godly motherhood is valuable, it is not our purpose. It is not our first calling, but the result of it.

Our purpose is first and foremost to love God more.

Therefore, we don’t wrap our purpose up in our children—or in any other relationship. Roles and relationships don’t define who we are and why we are here. Only one relationship defines us: our relationship with God.

Dear Mommies, we are so much more than the summation of our children. His purpose for your motherhood is that you would know him better, love him more, depend completely on his strength, and understand his faithfulness in a new way.