God’s relationship with his children reminds us that discipline and grace can work in tandem, helping us parent our own kids towards both a right obedience and a right worship.

God sees and values the hidden work we do as moms, even when others don’t or the fruit seems a long time coming.

Setting an achievable, consistent goal can help us build a thriving prayer life. Even just five minutes a day makes a huge difference!

God’s faithfulness to us enables our faithfulness in motherhood.

Although stepmoms don’t give birth to their stepchildren, they still give life to them through love, encouragement, and discipleship.

Our family devotions may not always (or ever) be deep, ordered, and disciplined, but they can be an opportunity to delight in the Lord together.

Not growing up in a Chrisitan family can make us insecure about raising our children in the Lord. Here’s hope and help for being a faithful mom regardless of our spiritual heritage.

First things first: Follow well, lead well

Sometimes our kids’ questions catch us off guard, especially when they ask why people don’t do things God’s way. With so many differing opinions around them, they’ll definitely be asking about marriage. Can you answer them faithfully?

There’s no denying we are what we eat; what is your family feasting on? What we treasure in our homes is often reflected in the hearts and lives of our children.

Sometimes motherhood seems mind-numbingly repetitive—clean up from lunch, make more food, clean up again. But the work we do is actually an assignment from God, giving meaning to the everyday realities of motherhood.

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.