The Key to a Mom’s True Happiness
Before I became a mom, I pictured happiness as a gallery of chubby smiles, goofy faces, and sleeping babes nestled in their mama’s arms. That vision crystalized into a deep, unmet longing when I couldn’t get pregnant for months, then years. As I scrolled through my friends’ photos on social media, the whispers of future fulfillment grew to a roar: “Once you have kids, then you’ll be happy!”
In his kindness, God redeemed my tears and blessed me with the joy of raising two sons. Though I was grateful that he answered my prayers, having kids surprised me in a less-than-blissful way. As I labored to keep two young children fed, safe, and cared for, I realized my kids weren’t filling my life with continuous sunshine. Mothering made me tired, annoyed, sad, confused, and enraged, sometimes all within the span of a few minutes. Happiness seemed fleeting—like naptime, it didn’t last long enough.
The problem wasn’t that my kids were terrible or that I’d naively assumed motherhood would be easy. It was that I was treating my kids like vending machines. I thought they’d supply doses of happy feelings whenever I wanted and satisfy my craving for meaning in life.
It’s a temptation many of us fall for without realizing it. We forget our wellspring of abiding joy––what John Piper calls “the deepest and most enduring happiness”[1]––that flows steadily regardless of our vacillating emotions or shifting circumstances. When we expect our children to make us truly happy, whether through their obedience or success or their own happiness, we place unrealistic burdens on them and promote them to a role that only Christ can fill.
Our Source of Delight
Children are a blessing from the Lord.[2] Despite the pain that results from the fall, the Bible speaks of the joy that can accompany birthing a child[3] and becoming a mother.[4] So we see from scripture that it’s not wrong to desire and enjoy children. And we know the work we do as moms is important and worthwhile, as we train up the next generation in righteousness and prayerfully nurture little disciples under our wings.
Sin twists our desires for and expectations of children the same way it warped Eve’s perception of the forbidden fruit. Seeing that children are delightful, we latch onto the lie that we need them or their good choices in order to live a satisfying life. As we turn to our kids to gratify our longings for significance and joy, we wind up treating them like objects instead of human beings and life givers instead of image bearers.
God doesn’t entrust us with children so we can worship them. He doesn’t want us to put our trust in anyone besides him. Expecting our kids to fill our happy cups only results in discontentment, frustration, and unhappiness with motherhood and life.
Our deepest cravings for joy and significance can only be satisfied by a limitless source of delight. As the psalmist declares about the Lord, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). Nothing in creation—even our children through biology or adoption—can fill us with joy more than living in relationship with our Creator. This is what Jesus bought for us with his death and resurrection. Rescue from sin. Freedom to receive grace and to walk by faith. The privilege to abide in our Father’s love forever. Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
Sisters, we can’t expect our kids to make us happy in a complete and lasting way. No person, hobby, job, or ministry can, in and of itself. True, abiding, storm-resilient joy can only be found in Christ. He gives us a better way to view our children and a better hope to sustain us through the happy and not-so-happy days and seasons of motherhood.
Our Purpose in Life
God knit our children together fearfully and wonderfully, not for the sole purpose of delighting us, but to glorify him. Rather than treat them like vending machines who owe us happiness after all the work we’ve put into raising them, we can see them as they are: image bearers of God entrusted to our care and training for a season.
This perspective shift changes both how we parent and how we view ourselves as parents. It moves the goal of mothering from trying to achieve success by our efforts or our kids’ actions to proclaiming the gospel and making disciples. When our son or daughter wins an award, finger-paints a “masterpiece,” or tells a silly joke, we can tell them how our heavenly Father sings over us and praise him for his creativity and gift of laughter. When our children erupt in a temper tantrum, steal a cookie, or cheat on a test, we can remind them that Christ died and rose again to forgive us of our sins and to help us choose to obey.
If we look to Christ for joy and purpose in mothering, we won’t place impossible expectations on our children. In fact, we might enjoy them more. Our joy won’t depend on our kids’ behavior or whether or not they made life easy for us any given day. As we see ourselves as children of God made to glorify our Father, we can rest in the truth that motherhood isn’t the source of our happiness; it’s a context where he placed us to praise him.
That’s not always easy to remember. We love our children, and it’s discouraging when they disobey and disappoint us. Maintaining this perspective means renewing our minds with scripture, praying for soft hearts (ours and our kids’), and practicing repentance day after day. Through the highs and lows, we can hold fast to the joy of our salvation. Jesus encourages us, “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22).
That thrill we feel when we laugh with our children and watch them flourish is a glimmer of the pleasure God receives when we delight in him, and he in us. How blessed, or happy, are we as moms to bear his image to our kids.
[1] John Piper, Desiring God (Multnomah Press, 198), 23.
[2] Psalm 127:3
[3] John 16:21
[4] Psalm 113:9
