What is the end goal of this season of mothering?

Do I slave away with a frustrated brow hoping for a tidy home and a helpful hand? In that, I hope to press on the importance of meekness and gratitude, hiding the vexations that come my way all the while striving to demonstrate the integrity behind service and love. Working day and night at prayer and sorting through my mental and paper lists of to-dos fill my brain with the overwhelming responsibility to be the pillar that upholds the faith and togetherness of our home.

It’s hard work and it’s not for the light-hearted woman who wants to just meander through life riding on the coattails of someone else’s pocketbook, changing attitudes like a Florida summer afternoon.

I have been running on a squeaky wheel in need of care for years now. Yet here I am, looking at my children smiling at their beautiful lives, and seeing ways to make an example for them to keep on following.

“This job [of motherhood] has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him. Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God’s way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness.”
― Elisabeth Elliot

I think of what examples I can set and often think of what it means to work at Godly virtues set for the children to follow. Meekness is important because it sets the tone for modesty. Modesty in living, dress, the spoken word, thought, and action. It helps us in choosing the examples we set for our family and in friendships. It draws boundaries and creates Christlike expectations.

Colossians 3: 1-13 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. ³ For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

⁵ Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ⁶ On account of these the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. ⁸ But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. ¹¹ Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

¹² Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³ bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 

I look at the end goal of this lifelong season of mothering. It doesn’t end as I launch them into adulthood. I still bruise my knees in prayer, weep over hurts, and jump in joyful dances with celebrations as they sweep through their own sanctification in maturity. I hope grace will find my example of Christian living of walking with propriety and faithfulness for my children’s lifelong journey as an example for them to follow.