I have been chewing over an article by Mary K. Mohler, wife of Albert Mohler. The topic is Motherhood Matters. It is very encouraging and I urge all my friends to read it. I love her perspective. She is an older woman who has traversed the road of womanhood (being a wife and a mother) and is writing from her experience based on her life as a believer.

Think about what it must have been like for Eve. She could not consult the ever-popular volume What To Expect When You’re Expecting. She had no mother or mother-in-law to consult. Ponder that! No one could tell her horror stories about labor. She only had Adam to confirm that she was getting quite pudgy around the middle. Finally, she gave birth to the first baby. What a moment that must have been!

Yes, motherhood is God’s idea. No improvement is needed. He purposefully created women to carry, give birth to, nurse, nurture, teach, and tenderly love our children in a way unique to our gender.

Lest you fear that I am about to beat up on mothers who work outside the home, let me be clear in stating that there is no biblical mandate that requires women to be at home full-time. We know Leah, Dorcas, and Priscilla were employed in some form. It’s a personal decision and should not be made in haste.

If you are a stay-at-home mom—live up to the title and don’t make it an oxymoron! If you find yourself in the car, at a meeting, at a practice, at a game, at a lesson, at a performance, or at a church event so often that you seem rarely to be at home, there is a problem. Families thrive on routine, structure, and schedule. Family meals should not be an event and should not be centered around the drive through at the local restaurant. Just because you are not employed, don’t fall into the pit of being so busy doing good things that you miss God’s best things about being at home.

Motherhood is all about balance. These are complicated issues. No matter where you come down here, we all want to be, by God’s grace, the best mom we can be. I don’t know any mother who says, “I want to be a mediocre mom.” How do we really strive for excellence?

  • First, be a lover of God’s word.
  • Second, we must be women of prayer.
  • Third, we must remember that we are called to be godly wives first.
  • Fourth, we should be students of motherhood.
  • Fifth, make every day count.
  • Sixth, pace yourself!
  • Lastly, resist the temptation to compare your personal motherhood philosophy with others, either in a superior or inferior way.

Don’t let the mundane get you down. Right now in your home, there may be dishes piling up, pesky socks that don’t match, a potty training set back, lunches to pack, and a long list of things to do. We start thinking that our job as mothers is little more than one menial job after another. Don’t forget that today has also been full of monumental opportunities. Did you take advantage of them?

Motherhood matters because it’s God’s idea; because he wants us to train the leaders of tomorrow; and because he has lots to teach us as moms as we allow him to teach our children with excellence.

Mary K. Mohler is the wife of seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. and the Director of the Seminary Wives Institute at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

But please, go and read the entire article or download it via pdf to print and read later.