Interview: Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood
This past spring I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Erin Davis for Revive Our Hearts at The Gospel Coalition’s National Conference. We chatted about motherhood, ministry, and the fact that life can sometimes feel like a life-size version of “Whack-a-Mole.” You can listen in or read the transcript of our entire conversation at Revive Our Hearts, Part 1 and Part 2. Here are some highlights from our conversation:
Erin: So, I love this description you give of motherhood in the book as mom’s being a life sized version of “Whack-a-Mole” the arcade game. So one need pops up. You meet it. Whammo. Another need pops up and Whammo. And that really is an accurate description of motherhood.
So what can happen to a mom who’s in that state? I don’t know if she’s the mallet or if she’s the mole. But anyway, it’s Whack-a-Mole. She doesn’t have her rhythm of regular time in the Word. What happens to a mom who’s constantly meeting needs and yet isn’t walking with God or doesn’t have time with the Lord on a regular basis?
Melissa: Yes. I think two things happen. I think one, the Whack-a-Mole game really does become just that. It has no purpose. We forget, “Why am I doing all this?” It just feels burdensome, “One more thing down.” There’s little joy because apart from the Lord we start losing our way. “Why does this matter? One more diaper to change. One more day all of the Legos spilling all over the floor and we’re picking them back up. One more day of these mundane tasks.”
But I’ve found such a difference when I see it in light of doing it for the Lord. It changes everything. If someone important asks you to do something, if the President of the United States asks you to get a cup of coffee, you’re thinking, Sure! I’ll be happy to get that for you.
Erin: Yes sir, Mr. President.
Melissa: Yes. No problem. So to think the Lord of all the Universe has asked me to love this child, that infuses it with meaning. God has entrusted me with this soul to know Him, to share about Him with. It’s a huge calling, and it changes everything about how I view it. It’s not mundane anymore. I’m being the hands of Jesus to love this child in the Way. That is where He’s asking me to pour out kindness and patience and mercy and to reflect His love to me to this little life. That changes everything.
Erin: You talk about trying to figure out the intersection of who you are as a believer and who you are as a mom. You talked about how you could find good parenting books and you could find good Bible studies, but you wanted to intersect those things. So how does who you are as a follower of Christ intersect with your role as a mom?
Melissa: Truthfully, I think this is the hugest question that sometimes we miss as moms, because knowing who I am and what my purpose here directs the purpose I’m setting out for my children.
If you walked into a mall and asked people, “What’s you’re purpose in life?” You’d get a thousand different answers. But I think a lot of it would come down to, “Well, my purpose is to generally be happy and be comfortable in life.”
That’s how a lot of us spend our time raising our children. If society starts saying that success is found in sports, making money, being a perfect violin player, or whatever, all these things; we start chasing all those things as mothers because we’re just trying to be happy. We’re just trying to now make our children happy, and we’re trying to make them comfortable. So we get in on these pursuits.
I think the first question we have to rewind and back up and say, “Is that really my purpose?” I think the Bible lays out a completely different purpose—a purpose to know God, to share Him with others. That’s a totally different place to start our life. If my ultimate purpose in life is to know God, that’s my greatest hope for my children. That changes everything.
When I think about how I’m going to spend my time and the activities I’m going to put my children in, I have to back up and say, “Is this going to detract from my original purpose? Is this going to keep them out of church on Sunday? Is this going to keep our family from getting to have a prayer time together? Is this going to take us away from family meals so much so that we don’t see each other?” It starts to change how we view everything. So I think starting with our purpose changes everything about our mothering and where we lead our children.
From Part 2:
Erin: you say where all moms need to start is this question of What is my purpose? You talked about our purpose in life is to know God, but what is the purpose of motherhood? What was God’s design there?
Melissa: Well, I think God gave families as the building block of all society. This is this little insulation period where we have these children. And truthfully, they absorb so readily what we put before them.
They’re given to us, and we teach them lots of things. We teach them what to eat. We teach them how to walk. We teach them how to dress, how to tie their shoes. But one of the important things we get to teach them is how to be in a relationship with God and what that means.
I think we teach it in a lot of ways. So often we think we only teach by our positive example. But one thing that really struck me as a hopeful thing is that I can even teach my children by my negative examples. What if I’m a mom that totally messes up?
When I just lose it and I yell at all my children–which has happened–and I realize I felt such a sense of failure when that happens: I’m a bad mom. I failed in my role as a mother. It was like the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit saying, “This is your chance to teach them what to do with your sin.”
Because just as I teach my children how to brush their teeth to do away with the plaque, they’re going to sin. They’re going to have hard relationship struggles. They’re going to struggle with their brother and their sister. So the best that I can do, even in my mess-ups, is to teach them. How do I relate to other people? So I went to all of them, and I apologized.
I said, “Mommy was really wrong. You may have been wrong. . .maybe you didn’t do the right thing by not listening to me (or something like that), but there is no reason for Mommy to ever yell. I apologize. Will you forgive me?”
And so at that moment, I’m teaching them this is how we get clean in our relationships: We confess. We ask forgiveness.
Erin: That’s the gospel. The gospel is: I sinned. Even though I didn’t want to act like that, I did. But there’s forgiveness, and Jesus wants to forgive me, and then it’s gone.
Melissa: Yes.
Erin: My boys know that when they mess up. One of my sons is particularly prone to feeling shame and condemnation. So we taught him that verse about God putting our sins in the bottom of the ocean. So when he messes up and feels that shame, we say, “Where is it?” “It’s in the bottom of the ocean.” I’m preaching the gospel to him.
Melissa: That’s right. And so I think maybe that’s the best definition of the purpose of motherhood: Preach the gospel to your children. That’s the thing they need the most.
To listen in or read more of our conversation, visit Revive Our Hearts.
