Jesus cares deeply about our heart towards our children, and the call to love our neighbors starts with them.

Christians have been given the message of reconciliation in Christ. In honor of MLK Jr. Day, we’re asking what it looks like to be caught up in the story of God reconciling his people to himself and to one another.

Vulnerable moms are all around us—the park, the library, the local school, the store. They might have different concerns, worries, and privileges, but the value of their personhood and need for the gospel are the same. But how do we care for these neighbors? What does God’s word say to the mom in the midst of diapers, school pick-ups, and busy schedules?

“The Bible is full of examples of caring for the vulnerable who have been ‘cast off’ from society.

In the Old Testament, there were laws about caring for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. The lineage of Christ includes the names of vulnerable, imperfect women like, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Mary.

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus left his place in heaven, at the right hand of God, to be born into a lineage that included men and women who were unable to follow God’s law, were cast out from society, and were foreigners among God’s covenant people. Jesus was born to a vulnerable woman who was pregnant out of wedlock. He humbled himself to dwell among strangers to show them God’s love by dying in their place, so they could be in relationship with a holy God who cannot look upon sin.

The scriptures tell a story of God bringing vulnerable strangers and foreigners into his family through redemption in Christ. Throughout the narrative of God’s word, it’s clear that we’re not brought into God’s family based on our own merit or lineage but by the saving grace of Jesus. We’re called to extend the same grace to the strangers and vulnerable people in our midst, wherever God has placed us.”

Today’s article is something special. It’s an interview with Tamra Call on gospel-hope for the vulnerable mom. She shares common misconceptions, what God’s word says for caring for the vulnerable, and how we moms—even in the little years—can love our neighbors well.

I spent much of my high school and college years intentionally building relationships with unbelievers, sharing the gospel with strangers, and passing out tracts. I even wanted to bring this message to other nations as a missionary. 

But God was leading me to a different season than I imagined for myself. A season that didn’t look like typical missions work or much of an evangelistic opportunity. I was to become a wife and mother. 

My interactions with the outside world were mainly the cashier at the grocery store, the children’s librarian, and people at the park. My limited interactions were fraught with countless interruptions, distractions, and little moments of crises.

I didn’t understand how this desire to evangelize matched up with motherhood, especially the part of motherhood that involved changing diapers and cleaning spit up. And I would feel guilty for not actively sharing the gospel with someone else.

But I was thinking about motherhood and evangelism wrong.

When Jesus walked this earth, he made disciples. He called them to come and follow him. He didn’t share a brief three point sermon, knock on a door, pass out a tract, and then walk away. He walked the same roads as his followers and traveled in their shoes. Jesus went the distance.

Because making a disciple takes time. 

I can change the baby’s diaper as an expression of a type of sacrificial love that reflects Jesus. I can teach both my boys that the gospel is their only hope for change and right living, while I reach out to the mom next door. I can love my children and the mom from story time. They are both my neighbor. 

When I offer my children grace, love, and acceptance in their failures I’m pointing them to a greater version of these things in Christ. Just the same, when I extend an invitation for a playdate with an unbeliever I’m reflecting a greater invitation from the Savior. 

I’m being faithful where God has me.

I can trust God with the new seeds I plant now.

Peaceful sleep sounds echoed from my husband and two youngest children. Even the dogs were sleeping. My Bible was open, along with my copy of Tabletalk magazine and my notebook. My coffee cup was in arm’s reach, sitting on a calico mug mat that my ten-year-old daughter made in sewing class.

That morning, my prayer time stopped at the concentric circle labeled ‘neighbor.’ I was praying for my immediate neighbor, whose house I could see from my writing desk.

I love waking up and seeing the familiar van parked in the same spot, and as the sky yawns open, the house and people in it unveil their morning rituals (lights on, dogs out, paper retrieved, a wave of greeting, maybe a child running across the street to return a Tupperware or deliver a loose bouquet of red peonies).

Loving your neighbors brings comfort and peace.

So there I was, praying for my neighbor. A typical morning. Except that the phone I had turned off, which was in the other room, continued to receive text messages alerting me that something was terribly, dreadfully wrong in the house across the street. The house of the man for whom I was praying.

And then I noticed it: burly men ducking around the back of my house, wearing orange shirts marked DEA—Drug Enforcement Agency.

What does the conservative Bible believing family who lives across the street do in a crisis of this magnitude? How ought we to think about this? How ought we to live?

We could barrack ourselves in the house, remind ourselves and our children that ‘evil company perverts’ (see 1 Cor. 15:33), and, like the good Pharisees that we are always poised to become, thank God that we are not like evil meth addicts.

We could surround our home in our own version of yellow crime-scene tape, giving the message that we are better than this, that we make good choices, that we would never fall into this mess.

But that, of course, is not what Jesus calls us to do.

Right before my second son was born, my husband had emergency back surgery. Following my c-section, neither of us could lift more than ten pounds which made things really interesting as we tried to care for a newborn and a 30-pound toddler.

I remember calling an older mom the day I found out my husband needed surgery and just weeping. How were we going do this?

Thinking back on that season, I smile (and tear up) remembering each mom that did good to us. Some of them I knew and others I only recognized from a polite smile at church, but God knit my heart to theirs because of their kindness.

That’s what God does—he uses our acts of love to bind us together in unity.

Trying to do good to other moms in our own strength is a recipe for disaster. Thankfully, God doesn’t expect us to do it alone. His word tells us that he is ‘able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.’

It’s reassuring to know that we don’t have to come up with the grace on our own, isn’t it? He’ll give grace to you too, friend.

This week, mama, consider the opportunities that God has (or hasn’t) prepared for you, lean on his grace, and look forward to your reward in Heaven.

May he knit our hearts together as we do each other good.

Do you build walls of division within your church?

I know what you are thinking—"No! I warmly greet anyone who I pass walking down the halls of my church." But… what about your small group? How unified are you when someone shares an opinion on a matter of preference with which you disagree? What do you do when someone is different than you?

As we draw near to our sister, are we supposed to forget our differences? No! We are to use them to build up our sisters in Christ. God gives us unique schools of circumstances that are meant to cultivate new knowledge of Him—whether it is singleness, infertility, aging parents, financial difficulty, or illness.

However, rather than building a wall because of difference with your sister, build a bridge because of grace. After listening to your sister’s struggle, consider how Christ has ministered to both of you in similar ways. From that place of humility and common ground, be a caring sister and tenderly apply truths of the gospel that you have learned in your school of circumstance to your hurting sister’s heart.

Our differences do not have to divide. We can build bridges of grace rather than walls of division... . And, we would get front row seats in witnessing the power of the gospel transform the lives of those we love… even in the midst of our differences.

Division and disunity with other moms can surprise us at every turn, even in the most common situations....

With so many gray-area choices in the context of orthodox, biblical motherhood, how can we love one another well? How can we get below the surface, resisting feelings of shame, embarrassment, comparison, and judgement when we see another mom doing it differently?...

...Instead of judging each other, sizing one another up, and making broad brush stroke statements about “moms who work” or “moms who stay at home” or “moms who homeschool” etc., let’s seek to be kind and generous with our assumptions. Let’s resolve to learn the scriptures together and pursue Christ, living out the gospel in our daily lives. Let’s lovingly help each other see different people groups, especially those who don’t have a voice in our culture, and advocate for them.

Peace with the different mom but sister-in-Christ is possible. It comes through the cross as a subsequent overflow from peace in our vertical relationship with God. Unity isn’t going to come from everything-is-like-me motherhood, but from every-believer-made-one-in-him theology.