Is Motherhood a Sacred Calling?
I love being asked the question if motherhood is a sacred calling. In short, the answer is yes! But even as a pastor, I had to discover this firsthand on my own. Growing up, I could not conceive of an adult life in which I didn’t work. I was driven and got good grades. At the time God called me to ministry, I was a premed student at a top university. Ministry was different than what I had imagined for my life, but also, it somehow fit perfectly. I eventually changed course and accepted the call.
Becoming an ordained pastor in my denomination was not an easy, quick path. I took coursework for three years to earn my master of divinity, interviewed in a three-year process before church committees in my denomination, worked as a student in both church and hospital settings, underwent a two-day mandatory psychological examination, and took five board exams. Then, I had to get a church call and plan an ordination service. Needless to say, once I was serving at a church with people whom I loved, I had no intention of resigning!
Then, I became pregnant. My husband and I now had to envision life as a family of three. He worked long days in his job. My work as a pastor involved a lot of nights and weekend work. I wondered if we’d have much, if any, family time. I began to feel like I would be nurturing other families at the cost of my own. Then, I delivered our first child. God used my new, previously unimagined love for this child to rewrite me. After tears and much wrestling, I resigned.
As I woke up every morning (and many nights too) tending to my new treasure, I eventually awoke to what was really going on. I had not left my job. I was still a minister. And instead of preaching what I hoped would be a Sunday message that would light a holy spark in a person’s life, I could shape this new soul from the ground up. I was on holy ground.
The Sacred Calling Explained
While I am a Protestant pastor, I have many family members who are Catholic. A priest in the Catholic church is an intermediary between the people and God. The Reformers during the Protestant Reformation challenged this principle. They wanted to put a Bible in every person’s hand, and the concept of “a priesthood of all believers” was born. They believed people did not need a priest to approach God, and sacred roles were no longer confined to solely church ones. In effect, any task that a person did to serve God could give God glory—even if it was sweeping the floor! Along these lines, if I mothered in an attempt to please God, I was assuredly embracing a sacred calling. My Scriptural mantra became: “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17). Mary, the mother of Jesus, embraced this heart for service.
God has given us a special role as mothers. We have the ability to bring new life into the world through our very bodies. I find it hard to believe that my body knows how to make a fingernail or a kidney, but through the Lord’s grace, it does! We can partner with the Creator through this role. It’s a privilege that demands bodily sacrifice as we grow life, but the result is completely awe-inspiring! As a first-time parent, I remember feeling especially amazed and also terrified because a life was now mine and my husband’s responsibility! Reading parenting books and taking classes still did not equip us for the moment when it was time to leave the hospital and the weight of those emotions.
That moment of holy awe, sprinkled with a bit of holy trembling, is exactly where God wants us as parents to be. He wants us to come to him. He wants to partner with us beyond just the creation of life but in raising life, too. God has the guidebook—the Bible. He can speak to your heart when you don’t know what to do. He can supply the necessary strength to be strong for your child or children when you feel like you can’t get up and are tested beyond what you ever imagined. That’s why motherhood, and parenthood in general, is a sacred calling: It’s an invitation to draw closer to God and learn, just as you raise and teach another. Those who adopt children are every bit a part of this journey too!
God isn’t just interested in growing us; God is also interested in loving us. I remember seeing each of my children for the first time. No words can express the love that consumed me. I was forever changed, forever different. God had brought a new life into the world, and at the same time, he had given me a new identity: I was the mother of this child. The contours of my face softened. The beat of my heart quickened. The peace of my body grew as my child rested in my arms. Have you ever considered that the Father feels exactly that way about YOU, his child? As mothers, we have a little taste of the love that God has for his children, a love that the Bible says is simply so great that it’s beyond our comprehension (Romans 8:38–39). Motherhood is a sacred calling because it offers us a glimpse into the very heart of God.
Sacred, But Not Necessarily Exclusive
While motherhood is a sacred calling, it may or may not be an exclusive one. If it is an exclusive one, which it was for me when I left my job, it’s important that a woman feels the full measure of the Lord’s appreciation for her work. Feeling appreciation can be hard when we do so much self-sacrificing behind closed doors. But rest assured, God sees. I know of one mother of six who was home and felt like she had nothing to show for her days, despite being so busy. She started cataloging the number of diapers her children used and bottles she made to garner a sense of accomplishment. That’s when an understanding of motherhood as a sacred calling can help.
I began to feel God’s appreciation for my work in mothering when I came upon a quote from the book What is Wrong With the World. Author G.K. Chesterton asks, “How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the rule of three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute...”
As a mother, you matter. You have a unique and special ability to shape your child’s world through your love and their dependence upon you.
While some moms stay home, some do not. Either due to necessity or personal preference, some moms work outside of the home. That choice does not negate their sacred calling. Mothers hold a special place in their child or children’s lives that no one can replace regardless. I am grateful for a profession that has been flexible to reengage with. It gives me the joy to find ways of serving while still staying home with my children. Workplace expectations have also shifted in some industries since COVID, allowing for greater flexibility and a hybrid work/home schedule. No matter what our balance looks like as mothers, we honor our sacred calling when we allow the Lord to direct our steps (Isaiah 30:21).
God made us, and he knows how best to help us balance our many roles and goals. Those roles can include wife, daughter, aunt, friend, sister, and more. Our goals can pertain to life inside of the home and also outside of it through work or volunteerism. Finding our unique, comprehensive expression of our sacred calling will take quiet time alone with the Lord. All that God asks of us is to do it with integrity, to best honor whom he’s made us to be, and to give him the glory. A happy, purpose-filled mom is most likely to raise happy, purpose-filled children!
Protecting Our Sacred Calling
Whether we stay home or work outside of the home, the Lord not only values our work, but he has a purpose for it too. Mothers (and fathers) don’t just raise children; they shape souls. Our ability to conceive of our work as sacred is especially important today. In modern parenting, it feels far too easy to allow ourselves to get swept away with too many commitments. This busyness can inadvertently choke out the intangibles that actually make family time enjoyable and confer the most value to our children. Unstructured playtime, mealtime together as a family, and regular worship attendance are examples of what’s often overlooked. As a result, it’s easy to live with packed schedules and thin souls.
It’s no coincidence that we are living during the largest decline in church attendance in American history. This decline is across denominations and is documented in the recent book The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis and Michael Graham. One contributing factor to this phenomenon is the fact that families face increasing competition for regular church attendance from youth sports, other extracurriculars, and sheer exhaustion. As a result, the current generation of children is the first largely unchurched generation in American history. Sadly, their mental health statistics are also in decline. In other words, they need a faith lifeline.
One vital expression of our sacred calling as mothers, or parents in general, is our willingness to teach our children about faith. The Book of Deuteronomy emphasizes the importance of parent-child faith transmission (Deut. 6:6–8). The very survival of faith depended upon this kind of oral transmission, for believers did not always have an in-print Bible. But oral transmission and faith exposure through worship is just as vital today. Furthermore, there is an actual statistical window of receptiveness for faith invitations in children. According to David Staal’s Leading Kids to Jesus, children between the ages of 5–12 are the most receptive to faith invitations. They are almost 35% receptive versus only about 5% between the ages of 13–18. This receptivity barely increases at the age of 19 years and older. This is not to discourage evangelism at any age, but these statistics are convicting that there is a definite window of opportunity to plant seeds of faith when children are little and under our watch as parents.
The research says that faith invitations from parents to children are the most successful. That’s because our children trust us, depend upon us, and love us. In fact, their first inklings about God are often formed from how they see us. The importance of making faith invitations isn’t meant to be intimidating, however. There are resources that can help you online or in print. Further, teaching our children about God is meant to be more of a stress-reliever rather than a stress-inducer! That’s because God can be everything to them, while we as parents cannot. God’s love is infinite and perfect. I have told my children that I want them to know it because I won’t always be alive or right beside them when they need help, but God will be. Also, if I point them to the One who loves them unconditionally, it’s okay if I mess up sometimes—and I do, despite my best efforts! God can fill in any gap and love them whole. It’s a gift of the partnership of the sacred calling of motherhood and parenthood, for that matter.
When we shape a soul from the ground up, God gives us a unique opportunity to plant eternal seeds. The blind faith of children is inspiring and contagious, but they need someone to tell them about faith first. We as parents are the most influential people in their lives to do so. Exercising the sacred calling of motherhood does not mean that we need to be perfect; God knows our strengths and weaknesses and still chose us to be our child or children’s mother. What exercising our sacred calling does mean, however, is that we remain receptive to God’s direction and teaching as we teach our children. By accepting God’s invitation to partner with him through motherhood, we open up a valuable lifeline for the family. It’s one important way that faith will continue to grow and change hearts, including our own.
Originally published February 11, 2025.
