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To All the Young Mamas

·12 min read
To All the Young Mamas

By Angie Swanson

Dear young mom, picture me looking in your eyes with full and sincere eye contact and encouraging you with the following words. Words spoken from a 50 year old mom of four and Gigi of six.  Words I am praying will love and motivate you. Words I have said to my own sweet daughters as they start their journey into motherhood. God has given me a soft spot for young moms. It is a challenging, unique, and precious season of life. I remember my own mom telling me during my first pregnancy that being a mom, when done well, will be the most unselfish thing you will ever do. It is a daily laying down of your life. I can promise you, as I look back from the other end of that season, it is a sacrifice you will never regret and an investment that is not wasted.

You Are Not “Just” a Mom

You are not just a mom. You are a missionary. The most important thing your children need from you is to point them to Christ. From the day they are born you are on a rescue mission for their heart. You do not have the power to give them faith, but God has given you the task of teaching them about him, praying faithfully for soft hearts and striving to be a daily representation of him. You are their living example as they learn how to relate to God. This is a high and holy calling.

“If there is such a thing as being “just” a mom, then, sure, our purpose can be summed up in things such as potty training, working toward an illness-free childhood, or supporting children academically so they can be honor students or make a difference in society someday. We exist to point our children (and to those watching) to the king in all our mothering moments as we nurture life according to Christ’s pattern and hold on to his promises.” (Gloria Furnam)

This type of mothering perspective requires daily remembrance that perfectly obedient children is not the goal, your child being successful by the worlds standards and making you look good is not the goal. We live in an age where we are bombarded with messages from social media seeking to convince us of all sorts of things we have to do in order to be a good mom. My encouragement is to keep the main thing the main thing. The goal of parenting, and all of life, is answered in the first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
“What is the chief end of man? Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

Our mission is to create an atmosphere where our kids know beyond a shadow of a doubt that mom and dad are concerned first and foremost about glorifying God in everything we do! God is for their joy, and true joy is only found in living according to his word. In the daily mundane and in the massive moments of life, may this principle guide our days.

You Cannot Pour From an Empty Cup

You will not be able to give to your children what you yourself do not possess. An illustration that has served me well as a young (and middle aged) mom is a picture of a multi level water fountain. If I am not filled up with daily intake of God’s word, being dependent on him in prayer, looking to the only one able to fill me with joy and steady my heart with truth - I have nothing valuable to spill out to my husband, my children, my friends and neighbors.

The description of a godly woman in Proverbs 31:25 has been a motivator for me throughout all of my mothering years.
“Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the days to come.”

In order for me to be a living example of this verse in my home, I must beseech the Lord for help to cultivate, learn and develop deep confidence in the absolute control and sovereignty of God. Daily trusting that nothing can thwart his plan. (Job 42:2) 

The anxieties we shoulder as moms, are equal to the joys. In order to set a tone of stability in your home and walk alongside your kids through all the ups and downs of life, you need to be anchored in this truth. Give them the gift of being a mom who is consistently happy in the Lord and one who points them to the fact that there is no need to fear. God is in control over every detail of your life and theirs.

“There is not one piece of cosmic dust that is outside the scope of God’s sovereign providence.”(Charles Spurgeon)

Being a young mom is often a task-filled and sleep deprived season. The younger years are more physically exhausting, where as the older years shift to being more mentally taxing. On a very practical note, may I encourage you to consider balance in the following three areas.

  1. Your Mind
    There is simply no more powerful gift we have to help us in this season (and every season) than seeking the Lord in prayer and reading the Bible, even if it is in small doses. God’s word reveals who he is. Read with an eye out for God’s character and attributes in every passage of Scripture. Weary mom, the Bible is true, it is a shield and a refuge. (Proverbs 30:5) In his presence is where we find rest for our souls.
    “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.” (George Mueller)
  2. Your Body
    “Exercise makes happier humans, and God made humans to be happy – in Him – with bodily movement being an assistant, rather than adversary, to our joy.” (David Mathis) 
    Simply put, even when you don’t feel like it, go outside, go on a walk, a run, or commit to a more extensive program. Some form of regular exercise will result in happy endorphins and better sleep. Don’t swing the pendulum and obsess over it or make an idol out of eating crazy healthy. Enjoy everything in moderation. May the motivating factor be to steward your health in order to serve your family to the glory of God. Lastly, recognize that sometimes there is no need to find a big solution to a troubling day, you just need to go to sleep.
  3. Your Soul
    We were not made to do life alone. Ask for help. Find someone to speak out what you’re struggling with. Be humble enough to see this as a need. Be committed to your local church. This is God’s means of grace for you to receive regular teaching from God’s word, to sing praise to God corporately, receive encouragement from older saints, and serve while developing community with others in your same season of life. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Dependence On Prayer

I am often asked the question, what is your best piece of advice on parenting? My answer is always the same. Pray, Pray, Pray. God’s power alone is what transforms hearts. Dear young mom, let this section take the pressure off of you to do everything “right”. You won’t. I didn’t. Your child’s salvation is not in your control. Just like your own salvation was all an act of God opening your eyes to your sin and giving you faith to believe in Christ alone, so it will be for your children. This truth does not minimize the high and holy calling I wrote about at the beginning of this post, but it does remind us where the power for shaping hearts lies. God is gently shepherding us as we shepherd our children. Isaiah 40:11 has on many occasions been a balm to my soul.

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

God has not given us these precious little lives and then left us alone to raise them! In his wisdom, he very often uses parenthood to help us come to the end of ourselves and see how very dependent we are on him. Needy, weak, dependent. Those are not words that are celebrated in our culture. But in God’s economy that is exactly where he wants us. Again, as we parent these children, God is parenting us! He is using this season as a means of grace to reveal our own sin and weakness. The more we can see that, the more we are able to be used as a conduit to extend the grace we receive vertically from the Lord, horizontally to our kids. We are freed up to communicate to them when we fail, and how we need God’s grace just like they do. This, in turn, models a personal relationship with Christ. Not external morality.

How, What, When to Pray

Pray daily, pray specifically, pray humbly. Who is going to go before the throne on behalf of your children more consistently and passionately than you, their mother? What a privilege and honor!

Pray for wisdom and insight into each child. Pray that they will get caught in their sin while they are under your roof so you can enter in with grace and truth. Pray for their salvation. Pray for God to convict them of specific heart issues that you see. Pray for godly friends. Pray for their future spouse to love the Lord with all their heart, mind and soul. Pray for a sensitive conscience. Pray for a hunger and thirst for God’s word. Pray for them to know that they are made by God and for God. Pray for God to open doors to use the gifts and talents they have been given to serve others. Pray for God to bring other adults into their life to reinforce truth in a fresh way. Pray for generous wisdom as you parent them. Pray for the ability to communicate with them in a way that builds bridges and not walls. Pray for a desire to honor you as parents and have loyal love for their siblings. Pray for God to reveal lies they are believing. Pray for God to convict you if there is anything you need to be doing differently. Pray that they will have faith to believe that sin always leads to death and obedience is for their joy and God’s glory.

Combine your Bible reading and prayer. When you are reading your Bible, pray God’s inspired words over yourself and your kids. Pray while you exercise. My mind stays more focused when I am walking or running. When my kids were young, I was prompted by a friend of mine to type out a list every so often with specific things my husband and I identified as needs to pray for that child based on their heart, their age and what was going on with them. I would put the list in a page protector (I know, I’m aging myself) and carry one around with me on that child’s day of the week to pray for them. Maximize your monotony by praying in the car, on the treadmill, while folding clothes. Regularly ask how you can pray for them - when they are 5 and when they are 25.

One of the sweetest things about being a mom who prays is that it is one joy of parenting that does not change when they begin to leave the nest! A lot of things you joyfully did before, you do not get to do anymore. But prayer is not one of them. And it is perhaps the best gift and role you can fill in your child’s life in each and every season.

Additional Quotes On Motherhood:

“You, my mother, have been the great means in God’s hand of rendering me what I hope I am.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.” (John Wesley)

“In parenting it is very hard to give away what you don’t have. In many of our homes, it’s not just our children who are blind to the awesome display of God’s presence, power and glory everywhere around us; we are also blind to it. So perhaps we should start with asking God not to open our children’s eyes, but first to open ours, so that we can help them see. We tend to see transportation that needs to be supplied, lunch’s that need to be made, clothes that need to be washed, activities that need to be scheduled… For some of us, we can go through days with no awareness of God whatsoever. Only as God graciously opens our eyes to His glory and captures our hearts with his awe will we ever be his instruments in the eyes of our children.” (Paul Tripp)

Deuteronomy 6:5-11 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

“As a parent you are never, ever dealing just with the words and actions of your children. You are always also dealing with the thing that controls their words and behavior: the heart.” (Paul Tripp)

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